Biogeographical ‍distributions of trickster animals

Area of Science:

• Cultural Ecology
• Ethnozoology
• Biogeography

Background:

• Folklore themes, while potentially universal, often exhibit constrained distributions.
• The factors limiting the global spread of zoological folklore, particularly trickster animal archetypes, are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the ecological and biogeographical factors restricting the distribution of trickster animals in global folklore.
• To understand the indirect influence of climate on the cultural prevalence of specific animal archetypes.

Main Methods:

• Applied biogeographical methodologies to analyze a dataset of 455 trickster animal entries across 16 taxonomic categories.
• Compared trickster animal data with a large dataset of 93,090,848 real animal entries.
• Examined the correlation between animal presence, geographic distribution, and climatic variables (mean annual temperature, precipitation).

Main Results:

• The distribution of trickster animals in folklore is significantly correlated with the geographic presence of their real-world counterparts.
• Proximity to the habitats of real animals is a key constraint on the dissemination of their trickster archetypes.
• Climatic factors, specifically annual mean temperature and precipitation, indirectly shape trickster animal distribution by influencing real animal ranges.

Conclusions:

• Ecological factors, particularly the distribution of real animals, play a crucial role in shaping cultural narratives like zoological folklore.
• Biogeographical approaches offer valuable insights into the interplay between environmental conditions and cultural phenomena.
• This study highlights the deep connection between ecological realities and the symbolic representations found in human culture.