Signs of Winter 5: Migrate, Mutate, or Die

Photo by D. Sillman

Photo by D. Sillman

I have been searching around a number of “famous quotes” web sites to try to find out who first coined the phrase “migrate, mutate or die.” I wanted to use it in a winter blog with a re-phrasing into “hibernate, migrate, or die,” but even through this quote (sometimes with the added admonition “adapt” in between “mutate” and “die” (which might fit my idea for the winter blog even better!)) is widely known and used in many situations and forms, the exact author is (at least so far to me) not clear.

I remember one of my undergraduate biology professors at Texas Tech saying “migrate, mutate, or die” in his slow, drawn-out, West Texas drawl. He was discussing Natural Selection in kangaroo rats, I think. The gist of the phrase is essential Darwinism, but I cannot find these three words in “Origin of Species” or any other book by Darwin. It would have been very unlikely in any case that he would have used the term “mutate” since the “discovery” of genetics and its fusion with Darwinian selection occurred well after Darwin’s death.

I also remember a story that one of my professors at Ohio State told the small group of graduate students who had been brave enough (or possibly just sufficiently uninformed enough) to take the optional, but very demanding laboratory section that went with a two quarter long, plant physiology course. His story was a great relief from the construction of all of the elaborate apparatuses demanded by the course, and it ended with “migrate, mutate, or die” as its punchline. His story was centered on a historically notable plant ecologist at Ohio State in early Twentieth Century. This individual (whose name I have forgotten (and isn’t that the expected fate of all “famous” plant ecologists?)) took some of his graduate students out botanizing on a walk through a nearby prairie relic not realizing that one of the students the night before had planted an arctic circle tundra species out among the prairie flora. The botanist, seeing the unexpected tundra plant, stopped his on-going identification narrative and bent over to look very closely at the alien species. He pointed a long finger at the plant and said, “Migrate, mutate, or die!” and then continued on his field lecture.

Cruising around on the Internet I find this quote being used to highlight many different kinds of discussions. Real estate selling practices, funeral directors’ education programs, businesses’ competition and communication systems, the National Parks Service, some archeologists, and some on-line gamers have all used this three or four word epigrammatic phrase to focus attention on the need to change with a changing environment or run the risk of some respective professional, virtual, or biological “death.”

One document that included the quote was a transcript from an agricultural education workshop at Ohio State back in 1985. A published comment to the workshop’s keynote address attributed the quote to John Steinbeck in his great novel “The Grapes of Wrath.” That motivated me to re-read “The Grapes of Wrath,” and I can tell you that although the motivation to move or change (or die) was a large part of the novel, nowhere in the book does Steinbeck say “migrate, mutate, or die.”

It’s too great of a quote to not have an author, but whoever first said it is quite hidden!
So, let’s get back to winter and my “hibernate, migrate, adapt or die” and leave the original quote in limbo for now.

Photo by D. Sillman

Photo by D. Sillman

Hibernate: Winter shuts down most species’ food supplies. Many species respond to the anticipation of these months of crushingly limited food resources by gorging themselves on the bounty of the late summer and early fall and then falling into the slow metabolic states of torpor or true hibernation so that they can stretch these stored body resources over all of the months of winter. Bears, chipmunks, woodchucks, box turtles, snakes and many more all utilize this system with great success.

Migrate: I have frequently written about species that migrate. The robins, the grosbeaks, the tanagers, the hummingbirds and many, many more use their stored up body fat from their own summer and fall gorging to undertake long flights to tropical or southern hemispherical habitats. They spend their energy reserves on the chance that food will be waiting for them when they get across the Gulf of Mexico or down to the forests on the slopes of the Andes. Then they make the same bet three months later to cover their return north!

Photo by D. Sillman

Photo by D. Sillman

Adapt: The “adapt” part of this winter epigram really means “tough it out.” Get by on less, drive your body to eat whatever is still available in the frozen landscape, or just burn your fat reserves as slowly as you can hoping that they will keep you from freezing and also last until spring. White-tailed deer “tough it out” like this. They eat whatever they can regardless of its level of nutrition. They stuff their shrunken stomachs with chewed branches and other equally indigestible materials, and slow down their metabolic rates as much as possible to make their reserves last.

Die: The “die” option is realized by many individuals in all three of the above categories. Hibernating animals are vulnerable to predators. They also can use up their own fat reserves and end up frozen in their overwintering dens. Many individuals don’t survive the incredible physical demands of migration. It is estimated that half of the migrants leaving North America in the fall do not return in the spring. And, the species that “tough it out” regularly slip off of the razor’s edge of survival and end up frozen in the snow becoming food for a waiting host of other survivors and “adapters.”

So winter is a harsh time for wild species. I keep my bird feeders full all winter to try to help out, and I seldom chase away the squirrels or even the deer who come by regularly and gorge on the astonishingly expensive bird seed, peanuts, and shelled corn. As I watch them from my fossil fuel heated house with the promise of hot coffee and food anytime I want it (which in the winter is almost all the time!), I ignore the monetary costs and am grateful for the absence of my own ecological payment.

It’s winter!

(And, if anyone knows where “migrate, mutate, adapt or die” comes from, please let me know. I will keep looking, too!)

This entry was posted in Bill's Notes. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Signs of Winter 5: Migrate, Mutate, or Die

  1. Lynn Ramage says:

    My husband and I watched a prime example of Winter survival late yesterday afternoon. I looked up from some paperwork on our kitchen table to see a female redtail hawk sitting on the ground near one of our feeders. Sure enough, she had what was probably a junco in her claws. She was very wary but sat there consuming her catch for about one half hour. Then she moved to a nearby magnolia and did a leisurely cleaning of her talons. The junco migrated here from an even worse Winter climate, adapted to eating seed under bird feeders, and died as part of the food web so another bird could live in this bitter cold.

  2. Jennifer Wood says:

    If you can forgive a beekeeper’s perspective on the three options: European honeybees, it would seem, adapt. Many assume they hibernate, but what they really do is cluster together on the comb and shiver their flight muscles to create warmth. The cluster can get as warm as 90 degrees F. The cluster slowly moves up (never down) over the comb so the bees can eat they honey worked so hard in the summer to make. They take turns moving from the inside of the cluster to the outside so that no one individual has to endure the cold for very long.

    Don’t know the author of the phrase “migrate, mutate, adapt or die,” alas! Though I know it’s a way off, I am really looking forward to reading the first sign of spring!

  3. Deb S. says:

    Great thoughts. Sorry though, no idea of the quote’s origin.

    Thankfully “migrate, mutate, adapt or die” is seldom heard in health care!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *