text:
An Open Letter to Hobbyists

"An Open Letter to Hobbyists" is a 1976 open letter written by Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, to early personal computer hobbyists, in which Gates expresses dismay at the rampant software piracy taking place in the hobbyist community, particularly with regard to his company's software.

In the letter, Gates expressed frustration with most computer hobbyists who were using his company's Altair BASIC software without having paid for it. He asserted that such widespread unauthorized copying in effect discouraged developers from investing time and money in creating high-quality software. He cited the unfairness of gaining the benefits of software authors' time, effort, and capital without paying them as a rationale for refusing to publish the machine code for his company's flagship product, thereby making it available to lower-income hobbyists who could have borrowed such program listings from their local library and entered the program into their hobby computer by data entry.

Altair BASIC

In December 1974, Gates, a student at Harvard University, alongside Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who worked at Honeywell in Boston, both saw the Altair 8800 computer in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics for the first time. They had both written BASIC language programs since their days at Lakeside School in Seattle, and knew the Altair computer was powerful enough to support a BASIC interpreter. Both Gates and Allen wanted to be the first to offer BASIC for the Altair computer, and expected the software development tools they had previously created for their Intel 8008 microprocessor-based Traf-O-Data computer to give them a head start.

By early March of the following year, Allen, Gates and Monte Davidoff, a fellow Harvard student, had created a BASIC interpreter that worked under simulation on a PDP-10 mainframe computer at Harvard. Allen and Gates had been in contact with Ed Roberts of MITS, and in March 1975, Allen visited Albuquerque, New Mexico, to test the software on an actual machine. To both Allen and Roberts' surprise, the software worked. MITS agreed to license the software from Allen and Gates. Allen left his job at Honeywell, and became the Vice President and Director of Software at MITS with a salary of $30,000 a year; Gates remained a student at Harvard, and worked under MITS as a contractor instead, with the October 1975 company newsletter giving his title at the company as "Software Specialist".

On July 22, 1975, MITS signed the contract with Allen and Gates, who would receive $3000 at the signing and a royalty for each copy of BASIC sold; $30 for the 4K version, $35 for the 8K version and $60 for the expanded version. The contract had a cap of $180,000, with MITS retaining an exclusive worldwide license to the program for 10 years. MITS would supply the computer time necessary for development on a PDP-10 owned by the Albuquerque school district.

The April 1975 issue of MITS's Computer Notes had the banner headline "Altair Basic – Up and Running". The Altair 8800 computer was a break-even sale for MITS, who would need to sell additional memory boards, I/O boards, and other add-on options to make a profit. When purchased with two 4K memory boards and an I/O board, the 8K BASIC cost just $75, the initial standalone price for BASIC being $500. To promote the computer, MITS purchased a camper van and outfitted it with the complete product line, dubbed the "MITS-Mobile"; the company used this van to tour the United States, giving seminars featuring the Altair Computer and Altair BASIC.

1975 Homebrew Computer Club and subsequent copying of Altair BASIC
The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist club in Palo Alto, California. At the first meeting in March 1975, Steve Dompier gave an account of his visit to the MITS factory in Albuquerque, where he had attempted to pick up his order for one of everything. He left with a computer kit with 256 bytes of memory. At the April 16, 1975 club meeting, Dompier keyed in a small program that played the song "The Fool on the Hill" on a nearby AM radio, through the use of radio frequency interference or static controlled by the timing loops in the program. Gates, who could not figure out how the computer could broadcast to the radio, described this in the July 1975 edition of Computer Notes as "the best demo program I've seen for the Altair".

The June 1975 Homebrew Computer Club Newsletter carried this item written by Fred Moore, Editor:

"The MITS MOBILE came to Rickey's Hyatt House in Palo Alto June 5th & 6th. The room was packed (150+) with amateurs and experimenters eager to find out about this new electronic toy."

At the same June seminar, a paper tape containing a pre-release version of Altair BASIC disappeared. The tape was given to Dompier, who passed it on to Dan Sokol, who had access to a high speed tape punch. At the next Homebrew Computer Club meeting, 50 copies of Altair BASIC on paper tape appeared in a cardboard box.

MITS offered a complete Altair system with two MITS 4K Dynamic RAM boards, a serial interface board and Altair BASIC for $995. However, the $264 MITS RAM boards were unreliable, due to several component and design problems. An enterprising Homebrew Computer Club member, Robert Marsh, designed a 4K static memory that was plug-in compatible with the Altair 8800, and sold it for $255. His company, Processor Technology, became one of the most successful Altair compatible board suppliers. As a result of Dompier's copying of Altair BASIC and Marsh's third-party 4K static memory plug-in, many Altair 8800 computer owners came to skip purchasing the bundled package from MITS directly, instead purchasing their memory boards from a third-party supplier and using a "borrowed" copy of Altair BASIC.

Ed Roberts acknowledged the 4K Dynamic RAM board problems in the October 1975 Computer Notes. The price was reduced from $264 to $195, and existing purchasers got a $50 rebate; the full price for 8K Altair BASIC was reduced to $200, though Roberts declined a customer's request that MITS give BASIC to customers for free, noting that MITS had made a "$180,000 royalty commitment to Micro Soft". Roberts also wrote that "Anyone who is using a stolen copy of MITS BASIC should identify himself for what he is, a thief", and described third-party hardware suppliers as "parasite companies". The newly released Processor Technology static RAM board drew more current than the MITS dynamic RAM board, with the addition of two or three boards taxing the Altair 8800's power supply. As a consequence, Howard Fullmer began selling a power supply upgrade for the Altair, naming his company Parasitic Engineering as a nod to Roberts' comments. Fullmer would later help define the industry standard for Altair compatible boards, the S-100 bus standard. The next year, 1976, would see many Altair bus computer clones such as the IMSAI 8080 and the Processor Technology Sol-20.

Open letter
At the end of 1975, MITS was shipping a thousand computers a month, but copies of BASIC were selling in the low hundreds. Additional software projects required more resources; the MITS 8-inch floppy disk system was about to be released, as was the MITS 680B computer based on the Motorola 6800. A high school friend of Allen and Gates, Ric Weiland, was hired to convert the 8080 BASIC to the 6800 microprocessor. David Bunnell, Computer Notes Editor, was sympathetic to Gates' position. He wrote in the September 1975 issue that "customers have been ripping off MITS software".

"Now I ask you--does a musician have the right to collect the royalty on the sale of his records or does a writer have the right to collect the royalty on the sale of his books? Are people who copy software any different than those who copy records and books?"

Gates, keen to attempt to explain the cost of developing software to the hobbyist community, restated much of what Bunnell had written in September and what Roberts had written in October; however, the tone of his letter was different, instead emphasising Gates' view that hobbyists were stealing from him personally, and not from a corporation.

"Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?"

One of the principal targets of the letter was the Homebrew Computer Club, with a copy sent to the club directly. The letter also appeared in Computer Notes. To ensure the letter would be noticed, Bunnell sent the letter via special delivery mail to every major computer publication in the country.

In the letter, Gates also mentioned the development of the APL programming language for the 8080 and 6800 microprocessors, a programming language in vogue with some other computer scientists in the 1970s. The language, which used a character set based on the Greek alphabet, required special terminals to implement that most hobbyist terminals did not have; as well as not displaying symbols from the Greek alphabet, most hobbyist terminals did not even display lowercase letters. Though Gates was enamored with APL, Allen did not believe it could be sold as a product; interest in the project soon faded, and the software itself was never completed.

Reaction

Following the difficulties with receiving piecemeal royalties, Microsoft switched to a fixed-priced contract with MITS, who would pay $31,200 for a non-exclusive license of 6800 BASIC. The future sales of BASIC for the Commodore PET, the Apple II, the Radio Shack TRS-80 and others were all fixed-price contracts.

In early 1976 ads for its Apple I computer, Apple Inc made the claims that "our philosophy is to provide software for our machines free or at minimal cost", emphasising that Apple BASIC was free.

Microsoft's software development was done on a DEC PDP-10 mainframe computer system, with Allen having developed a program that could completely simulate a new microprocessor system. This allowed Microsoft to write and debug software before the new computer hardware was complete. The company was charged by the hour and by the amount of resources (such as storage and printing) used, the "$40,000 of computer time" mentioned in the letter. As a result of these software developments, the 6800 BASIC was complete before the Altair 680 was finished, with the 680 hardware arriving months late.

Hal Singer of the Micro-8 Newsletter published an open letter to Roberts, pointing out that MITS promised a computer for $395, but that the price for a working system was $1000. He suggested a class action lawsuit or a Federal Trade Commission investigation into false advertising was in order. Hal also noted that rumors were circulating that Gates had developed BASIC on a Harvard University computer funded by the US government, and that customers should not pay for software already paid for by the taxpayer. Gates, Allen and Davidoff had used a PDP-10 at Harvard's Aiken Computer Center, the computer system of which had been funded by the Department of Defence through its Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency; Harvard officials were not pleased that Gates and Allen (who was not a student) had used the PDP-10 to develop a commercial product, but determined that the computer itself, which technically belonged to the military, was not covered by any Harvard policy; the PDP-10 was controlled by Professor Thomas Cheatham, who felt that students could use the machine for personal use. Harvard placed restrictions on the computer's use, and Gates and Allen had to use a commercial time share computer in Boston to finalize the software.

In 2008, Homebrew member Lee Felsenstein recalled similar doubts about Gates' $40,000 number: "Well, we all knew [that] the evaluation of computer time was the ultimate in funny money. You never pay that much for the computer time and I think that research will show that they were using someone else's computer time; someone else was paying for that. It could have been Honeywell where Paul Allen was working. So we all knew this to be a spurious argument."

According to Felsenstein, Gates' letter "delineated a rift [between] the actual industry where there's trying to make money and there's those hobbyist where we're trying to make things happen";

"The industry needs the hobbyists and this was illustrated by what happened eventually. When National Semiconductor, which made their own microprocessor chips in '77 or '78, decided they needed a BASIC ... they asked, 'What's the most popular BASIC?' And the answer was Microsoft BASIC because everybody had copied it and everybody was using it. So we made Microsoft the standard BASIC. National Semiconductor went to Microsoft and bought a license, they were in business that way. This was the marketing function and the hobbyists did the marketing with a complete antipathy of the company in question. There were other BASICs and, you know, some of them might even have been better. ... [Gates' later success] was in a certain measure because of what we did, that he said we shouldn't do, we were thieves to do it, and all."

Jim Warren, Homebrew Computer Club Member and editor of Dr. Dobb's Journal, wrote in the July 1976 ACM Programming Language newsletter about the successful Tiny BASIC project. The goal was to create BASIC language interpreters for microprocessor based computers. The project had started in late 1975, but the "Open Letter" motivated many hobbyists to participate. Computer clubs and individuals from all parts of the United States and the world soon created Tiny BASIC interpreters for the Intel 8080, the Motorola 6800 and MOS Technology 6502 processors. The assembly language source code was published or the software was sold for five or ten dollars.

Magazines that published the letter

Several responses to the letter were published, including one from Bill Gates.

 * Editor Art Childs writes about the letter he received from the "author of Altair Basic" and the resulting controversy on propriety software.
 * Jim Warren, the editor of Dr. Dobb's Journal, describes how the Tiny BASIC project is an alternative to hobbyist "ripping off" software.
 * An article on software copyright law that discusses the "Open Letter to Hobbyists".
 * Editor Art Childs writes about the letter he received from the "author of Altair Basic" and the resulting controversy on propriety software.
 * Jim Warren, the editor of Dr. Dobb's Journal, describes how the Tiny BASIC project is an alternative to hobbyist "ripping off" software.
 * An article on software copyright law that discusses the "Open Letter to Hobbyists".
 * An article on software copyright law that discusses the "Open Letter to Hobbyists".

title: An Open Letter to Hobbyists


text:
Talk:An Open Letter to Hobbyists

Primary source
History records this as a primary source documenting the creation of a class of computer serfs, working on the property owned personally by Mr. Gates indirectly through the Microsoft corporation. The lack of knowledge barrier created by excluding publication of the computer machine code, against the First Amendment---implying that any law cited in support of such censorship is unconstitutional---is an assault on the free enterprise system and capitalism. The coincidence of the bicentennial is circumstantial evidence of this attack, as is the conflict with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union knew that by allowing Mr. Gates to proceed, they were shutting down rival efforts to improve upon the knowledge contained in the machine code for Altair BASIC. This demand to create a private reserve of curiosity, interest in modification and improvement, and so on is deadly poison for the spirit and health of the free enterprise system. This anti-knowledge approach has turned Microsoft into the killer plant from the little shop of horrors. 70.171.155.43 (talk) 06:04, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Bruv, where can I get the killer plants that you're smoking? 171.61.253.49 (talk) 05:31, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:An Open Letter to Hobbyists


text:
Talk:Tapioca

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mw570.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:42, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tristan Donohoe. Peer reviewers: AmethystCosmos, Sr137.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:42, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment
Why would you take out the sentence

These come in both large-pearl and small-pearl forms.

So what if many things come in both large and small forms? Many things don't. Large-pearl tapioca handles very differently from small-pearl.

jaknouse 19:15 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

How are spheres made?
The external link describing the production process is interesting, but does not explain (to me, at least) how drying turns the wet goo into (aparently) perfectly spherical pearls. So tell us please, why are pearls so spherical, instead of irregular chunks?

I am just guessing, but I think a rotary kiln would do it. A rotary kiln is a large barrel, laid on its side, almost horizontal, rotated, while fire is shot into the slightly raised end.
 * no sir you are wrong, the cassava plant is sectioned and they just run it through a binder that shakes loose the sections and if continued it will segment it into small enough pieces —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.243.157.15 (talk • contribs)

New Ulm
How can New Ulm be considered the world tapioca capital if the dish isn't even from there? This information must be vandalism, or otherwise an absurd claim by the people from that town. 00:56, 6 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.83.93.169 (talk)

Images
Can you put in some images of both the pearls and the original plant? It would be very helpful. Iopq 23:38, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, a picture would be nice--Aegisxgundam 03:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC) Question still not answered. Does anyone know —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.47.83.148 (talk) 02:13, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Red/Green branches?
What is the support for the red/green branches assertion? The usual dichotomy is between bitter and sweet varieties, with the latter sometimes (erroneously) considered not to require removal of cyanide-generating components before consumption (although this is disputed). I'm inclined to remove the red/green phrase from this article. Myron 10:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The "fact" about Canada is erroneous
I was born in Canada 66 years ago. I have lived here for 66 years. I have NEVER heard the suggestion that tapioca is fed to poor children. What nonsense!!

The "fact" about Britain is highly dubious
The article says "'Tapioca' in Britain often refers to a rice pudding thickened with arrowroot,[citation needed]". I'm a British person; I have never heard of this and think it is highly unlikely. Tapioca pudding is made from tapioca pearls (not pre-soaked). We normally cook it by simmering it with milk, sugar and a little vanilla, and then baking it in the oven, often with nutmeg sprinkled over. PhilG (talk) 19:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Is tapioca a processed food?
The opening line
 * Tapioca is an essentially flavourless starchy ingredient, or fecula, produced from treated and dried cassava (manioc) root and used in cooking. It is similar to sago.

suggests that it is a processed product from the cassava root. Later paragraphs seems contradict that. "In the South Indian State of Kerala Tapioca is a staple food. Boiled Tapioca is normally eaten with fish curry or beef, and is a traditional favorite of Keralites.", "During World War II's Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia, many refugees survived on tapioca." This article mentioned the various names cassava goes by in different countries. Most notably, that cassava is known as tapioca in india. I can't find any other mention, but where I live, tapioca is used to refer to the cassava root as well. --Dodo bird 14:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that the article is not differentiating between tapioca (a by-product of cassava) and cassava itself in many places. I am trying to sort some of that out now by moving a few sections (like the "flatbreads/casabe" bit).Cgerbode (talk) 16:40, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Tapioca is not a by-product of Cassava. I can assure you that the root of the plant (whatever it is called) is what is Tapioca. If you are equally sure that that's what is Cassava, then it probably is just two different names for the same root, or these two are closely related plant species. However, this "article" has several extremely dubious pieces of information and needs a serious clean up. I can provide correct information with regards to India and several other Asian countries, but there are other members who are claiming that the article provides dubious facts about their countries too (for example, one English gentleman has commented in this talk page). May be I'll just clean up what I know for sure. Thanks! --ThePiston (talk) 18:01, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

New Zealand
Here, at least — I don't know about other countries — tapioca pearls are labelled as "sago", presumably because of their shape, but even though it is a different plant entirely! porges 06:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC) That's odd - because in Australia, Sago is often labelled "Seed Tapioca" - exactly the reverse!

Merge proposal
Done already. Closed. 79.72.144.208 (talk) 15:54, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I think this is the same as Tapiaco. If I'm mistaken, please remove these tags. If it's the same, but the alternate spelling is used, there may be a better way to say that in the Tapioca article than leave a separate Tapiaco one. (Unsigned post)

 * Done, with this edit, in November 2006. Closed and archived. 79.72.144.208 (talk) 15:54, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Merge Tapioca with Cassava
Closed, no support for merge. 79.72.144.208 (talk) 15:58, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Another merge request: I believe this is the same as Cassava. In fact, both articles contain the same photo of the roots and, to my knowledge, both plants are one and the same. GabiAPF (talk) 18:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC) I support this merger request. I think cassava is the general term for this variety of tuber with tapioca being the variety indegenous to south-south east asia. Simply reading the articles and looking at their large overlap is reason enough for the merger.BaronVonchesto (talk) 16:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Cassava and tapioca are different things. The problem is that apparently in India cassava is called tapioca, hence the confusion. Most of the India section refers to cassava, and the plants shown in the article are cassava (a.k.a. manioc, yuca, etc) plants, not tapioca plants. As stated on the first sentence of the article, tapioca is a starch, extracted from the cassava root. A comparison could be made with wheat and wheat flour, or corn and corn starch - tapioca is cassava starch. In Brazil it is also called polvilho, which can be doce (sweet) and azedo (sour). In other regions of the country, though, tapioca is the gummy starch made by adding water to the polvilho doce (or by not letting it dry). So there are many local nomenclatures that sometimes get mixed up, but they all refer to a type of starch, not to the cassava, which is a tuberous root. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.104.61.92 (talk) 03:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

The articles for both Tapioca and Cassava are linked together; Tapioca article mentions that it's made from cassava, and the cassava article mentions in its introduction that tapioca is derived from it. I don't feel that merging the pages will help, especially since cassava has culinary uses apart from being processed for tapioca. Cinderlei (talk) 15:44, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

TAPIOCA is portuguesse for CASSAVA and YUCCA. It is false to say that Tapioca is native to Brasil as Tapioca, as maize, was a pre-Colombian indigenous staple food all over the Americas long before Columbus. Its origin is necessarily unknown beyond it being native to the Americas. To say that Tapioca is different from cassava is an expression of Brasilian bias. I disagree with the notion that Tapioca is the flour and not the root. Tapioca is a regionalism of Cassave and Yucca. Cassave and Yucca also compete as identifiers for the plant in the West Indies. In Dominican Republic Cassave denotes the bread product of Yucca. Clearly for Dominican Republic, Casave is Tapioca. In Puerto Rico the term Casave has been mostly abandoned in favor of the term Yucca. But in Puerto Rico the prouction of the bread and flour has beed abandoned also. The fact is that the nomemclature was never well defined during the Spanish and Portuguese colonization migrations. It was the portuguese who coined the term tapioca in India and Asia. To attempt to establish a new found distinction between Tapioca and Cassave is to deny history in favor of Brasilian bias. Clearly for the portugusse, the origin of their plants was Basil. But for Spaniards it was the West Indies or Cuba or Venezuela. In fairness to the portuguese, spaniards had a vaiety of simultaneous colonial origins to understand the term; unlike the portuguese that could only associate the plant to their only colony, Brasil. Stapler80 (talk) 14:03, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

 * You are completely wrong. Cassava or yucca are known in Brazil (therefore in portuguese) as MANDIOCA (or also, if they are of the non-poisonous variety, as aipim or macaxeira). Tapioca is a starch obtained from the mandioca. Tapioca is a word that originates from the tupi language word "typy'oka" (or "typy'aka"), which means "sediment", "clot", it may also come from the words "(t)ypy" meaning "bottom" and "'ok" meaning "remove", so it would be something like "removed from the bottom". To make tapioca you must grate a skinned cassava, then mix this with water into a cylindrical recipient, after some time, part of this mix will sediment and clot at the bottom of the cylinder, this is what the tupi called tapioca, and is what brazilians call tapioca. And this is also what is used to make tapioca pearls, tapioca puddings, etc, meaning that this is also how the british and americans call the starch, tapioca. In India, apparently, cassava is called tapioca, that is fine, but it is not the same thing as the tapioca that is being discussed in this article, (i.e. the starch known as tapioca to american and british english speakers) but the tuberous root called cassava, yucca, or mandioca, for which there already is a different, pre-existing article on Wikipedia.189.104.2.131 (talk) 07:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

 * I am from India, and I have never heard or seen anyone using the word Cassava here. Tapioca is not a processed food here. It is the root, unprocessed. After tapioca is processed, what we get here is called as "Tapioca pearls". After all, it now looks to me like this is a cultural thing, and the same root vegetable is known as Cassava in some countries, and Tapioca over here (and presumably in some more Asian countries). Unfortunately, there's a lot of confusion because some people are mistaking Tapioca pearls with Sago pearls, and the article seems to reflect this incorrect notion. --ThePiston (talk) 18:11, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

 * The word isn't used in India, but it is used elsewhere. And since there already is a preexisting article under the name Cassava, that's where any entries pertaining to the root Manihot esculenta should take place. The ideal situation would be to rename this article to Tapioca starch (with redirects from terms such as cassava starch, tapioca pearls, tapioca granules, etc), as to avoid any further confusion between the starch and the root as it is known in India and possibly elsewhere (even in the brazilian page there is confusion over the term, which is both used for a starch and for s dish, known elsewhere in the country as beiju), and to change the disambiguation page for the term Tapioca, with an adjusted link that leads here, to the starch article, and with the addition of another that leads to the cassava article. Once that is done, all the root exclusive content (dishes made from the root and not the starch, the pictures of different varieties of the cassava root, etc) need to be removed. 200.217.225.129 (talk) 02:17, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I've closed this; there was No support for this merger, and the opinion here seems to be that Tapioca (the starch) and Cassava (the plant) are different subjects, both wider than what they have in common. 79.72.144.208 (talk) 15:58, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Chowwary is Malayalam for Tapioca?
"Tapioka is called Chowwary in Malayalam." Being a native Malayalam speaker, I have never heard that Chowwary is the same as Tapioca. As far as I know, Chowwary is a form of Barley. I could be mistaken on this one. Therefore, not editing the article directly Chowwary/ chovvary /savalleri (ചൊവ്വരി / സാവല്ലരി / സാവല്ലേരി) are processed starch from several sources, one among them being tapioca tubers. It is not used as a synonym for Tapioca. At least in South India, Tapioca is the name of the plant or its raw or cooked tubers (കപ്പ / മരച്ചീനി/കൊള്ളി/ പൂളക്കിഴങ്ങ്). The plant is the same as Cassava. The two articles indeed need to be merged together. ViswaPrabha വിശ്വപ്രഭ (talk) 03:47, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, as has already been stated twice in two other topics in this discussion page, different nomenclatures in differents countries have created a confusion between cassava and tapioca. Apparently, in India and Southeast Asia cassava is known as tapioca. But in other countries, like Brazil, tapioca is a by-product of cassava, tapioca is a type of cassava starch, therefore cassava and tapioca are not synonyms. If you want to write about the tuberous root or plant head over to the cassava page, if you wish to talk about the starch, the tapioca page is the place to do it. Unfortunately due to this confusion the article is a mess, maybe a good solution would be renaming the article from tapioca to tapioca starch, as to make it more clear that the subject of the article is not the plant/root.189.104.97.183 (talk) 03:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

US-Centric Language?
The article says "It is processed into either fine dried flakes or, more commonly, small hard white spheres or "pearls" that are soaked before use." Most commonly where? According to some random person's experience? Let's get a world-wide perspective or some specifics about what this "more commonly" means.

 * US centric language gives the article a world wide perspective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.32.45.69 (talk) 01:52, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

In Brazil, at least in Fortaleza on the northeast coast, flakes and spheres are uncommon. They primarily use the flour (polvilho doce) to make cheese bread (pao de queijo) and what they call tapioca (see below). Take a look at a Brazilian food importer's product page for |sweet manioc starch and |their other products from Brazil. Farinha de Mandioca is much coarser (which I believe contains some of the fiber of the root, and may have some starch, but I don't know) and is eaten plain in many meals. Technically, that may be considered tapioca as well.

In Brazil, the word tapioca itself means the tortilla-like fried product (though it is never browned, the tapioca is made in a very hot pan and almost melts together instead of cooking the way you'd think by the word frying), and is never a pudding. Calling it a tortilla is in fact a little bit misleading as even the thinnest tapioca is at least three times as thick as a regular tortilla, and some tapioca is formed to be as much as an inch thick and only about 4 inches in diameter. Here's some |regular tapioca, though if you want a guaranteed copyright-free image (or any others to do with this topic) I can arrange to get a fresh one straight out of Brazil. See the |Portuguese Wiki page on Tapioca for more information, as well. Erik Eckhardt (talk) 07:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Allergy
People can be allergic to tapioca. Since its mentioned that tapioca can be an alternative for gluten-free foods and people can be allergic to tapioca itself, would it be appropriate to make an allergy section for tapioca?

69.243.93.144 (talk) 03:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism?
I removed the following text from the article, because it appears to be vandalism. --Una Smith (talk) 19:16, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Ethiopia International Tapioca Research Stone & Tome Red cluster department of aural limestone use (est. 1846 with regards to roanoka settlements disappearing causes (and reservations, and planting corn, etc.)35476

Pearls
I think we need a better explanation of what exactly tapioca pearls are. ike9898 (talk) 10:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree! --Ithunn (talk) 09:14, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Nutrients
I think a table with tapioca nutrients would be useful. Can someone please add it? I once read that tapioca is not a recommended baby food, despite its widespread use in ready-made, processed baby products, because it has no nutrients (vitamins and minerals), only glucids and virtually no proteins.--Ithunn (talk) 09:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

While the article's introduction indicates tapioca is almost completely protein-free, the section on World War II claims it provided protein to refugees, a clear contradiction. The citation link for the latter section is expired, but a backup copy makes no mention of protein. http://web.archive.org/web/20071014235041/http://changimuseum.com/Chronicle/Chronicles+body+text+5.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.235.64.184 (talk) 00:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Milk pudding made with arrowroot?
I highly doubt that an entire country (UK) would make slime and call it tapioca. It also said that that a citation was needed. Arrowroot+milk=inedible and disgusting slime. Tapioca usually refers to a milk-pudding made with tapioca pearls. -- Azemocram (talk) 04:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of that either, and the claim has been disputed since 2009. I've removed it. Iapetus (talk) 10:48, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

tapioca plant in the philippines is not sago. it is called balinghoy or kamoteng-kahoy.

sago is the translation for "tapioca pearls" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.200.56.99 (talk) 00:16, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

claims about Ayurvedic use
I have removed them as they are not sourced. --Abhijeet Safai (talk) 14:54, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Sago
Several parts of the India subsection refer to how sago is used and made. While pearl sago is very similar to pearl tapioca, they are processed from two different plants that are native to opposite sides of the globe. Cinderlei (talk) 16:57, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

- I agree with the above comment. There is considerable confusion amongst the contributors to this article about Tapioca. Many have conflated it with Sabudana/Sago, which is the starch made from a completely different plant (the palm, Metroxylon sagu). This article needs to be cleaned up of all such references to Sago — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.171.104.61 (talk) 01:58, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

But What Is It ???
The article says it come from the 'starch' of the plant. Plants have leaves, stems, and roots. There is no part called the 'starch' of a plant. There is a picture there of cassava roots. Why is that picture there? Are you saying tapioca is from the roots? I like to the casava roots and eat them even better than potatoes. They are often a side dish with food in central America and the Caribbean. Are you saying that we are eating tapioca ? Then what of the little beads? And why then is sago used in preparation ... completely confused by this article! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.54.185.173 (talk) 02:11, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

The "fact" about India, Bangladesh, and a number of Asian countries is dubious
Tapioca is different from Sabudhana. This article claims that tapioca pearls are called as Sabudhana in some places of India, and in Bangladesh. However, this is completely wrong. Sabudhana is Sago pearls, and it is completely different from Tapioca. Tapioca is the root of a plant, which is known as Kappa Kezhangu in Tamil, and as Kappa in Malayalam. I'm unsure as to what it's known as in Marathi and other Indian languages, but Sabudhana is Sago. This article must be edited to reflect this fact. I might do it shortly.ThePiston (talk) 18:04, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

-- there is a comment above under the header "sago" that makes the same point. The article needs to clearly distinguish between tapioca pearls and sago pearls — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.33.196.37 (talk) 11:24, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Starch vs root
In the south america section, "In Peru, tapioca is known as yuca and is eaten mostly boiled as a side dish in the Amazon and fried with Papa a la Huancaína sauce as a snack when drinking alcohol." This refers to the use of the root as a vegetable, and this page should only be about the use of tapioca starch. Removing Danfeder (talk) 22:53, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

The name is wrong
Um... I am pretty sure you are mistaking tapioca (a dish) with the starch (which is called something else) on this name... Manioc starch is NOT called tapioca in brazil, tapioca is exclusively the name of the dish made from manioc starch, which is most often in powdered form and called polvilho. "In Brazil, the plant (cassava) is named "mandioca", while its starch is called "tapioca". " It is not — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.96.175.219 (talk) 19:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I would guess the confusion arose by the fact that tapioca is essentially made from polvilho and nothing else (cassava/manioc starch), however tapioca and the starch are not the same thing. I hope this gets corrected before this misuse spreads even more all over. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.112.69.4 (talk) 23:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Is there no one to fix this? This has also been mentioned a couple times in some discussions above, like in US centric language. This page is a huge confusion of names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.112.79.99 (talk) 04:07, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

We already have articles on Cassava (the plant) and this one (on the starch) and on Tapioca pudding (the dish), and which link to each other, so I don't see the confusion. If the objection is that “the starch is not called tapioca in Brazil”, I'd point out that it is in English, so if the Brazilian name for the starch is polviho, then that might be added somewhere; though the Portuguese WP (which is doubtless edited by people who would know) calls the starch product Tapioca and the dish Cuzcuz de Tapioca, so you might want to take it up there first. 79.72.144.208 (talk) 16:05, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

(Comment)
history of Manihot the page on 'cassava' mentions that the plant was widespread throughout precolumbian mesoamerica, but on this page it says it was brought to the west indies after european contact. it looks like th is page is wrong about that. Potholehotline (talk) 16:21, 25 June 2015 (UTC)potholehotline

Laundry usage
There should be a citation or more information on the use of tapioca in laundry. Quanhuynh96 (talk) 03:39, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Processing to reduce toxicity of linamarin
A question was raised within the article about how to minimize the toxicity of linamarin. This process is too detailed for the article, in my opinion, so I'll post it here for discussion. An excerpt from the FAO reference listed as #2: ...linamarin often coexists with its methyl homologue called methyl-linamarin or lotaustralin. Linamarin is a cyanogenic glycoside which is converted to toxic hydrocyanic acid or prussic acid when it comes into contact with linamarase, an enzyme that is released when the cells of cassava roots are ruptured. Otherwise linamarin is a rather stable compound which is not changed by boiling the cassava. If it is absorbed from the gut to the blood as the intact glycoside it is probably excreted unchanged in the urine without causing any harm to the organism (Philbrick, 1977). However, ingested linamarin can liberate cyanide in the gut during digestion.

Traditional processing and cooking methods for cassava can, if efficiently carried out, reduce the cyanide content to non-toxic levels. An efficient processing method will release the enzyme linamarase by disintegrating the microstructure the cassava root. On bringing this enzyme into contact with linamarin the glucoside is converted into hydrogen cyanide. The liberated cyanide will dissolve in the water when fermentation is effected by prolonged soaking, and will evaporate when the fermented cassava is dried. Sun drying fresh cassava pieces for short periods is an inefficient detoxification process... Simple boiling of fresh root pieces is not always reliable since the cyanide may be only partially liberated, and only part of the linamarin may be extracted in the cooking water. --Zefr (talk) 15:07, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Tapioca
When it is grown and harvested months 188.70.15.205 (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Inconsistency
The article says:

(1) The plant provided much needed carbohydrates and other nutrients.

(2) Dried tapioca pearls are 11% water and 89% carbohydrates, with no protein or fat. In a 100 gram reference amount, dried tapioca supplies 358 calories and no or only trace amounts of dietary minerals and vitamins.

contradicting itself.

also reference for (1) is not longer available. 189.243.22.150 (talk) 02:15, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Good catch on this inconsistency. I removed the dead reference for the WWII use, as a search for tapioca on that site yielded nothing. The USDA source used in the nutrition section is reliable, here, using the pick list for a 100 g amount. Only carbohydrates are notable in the 100 g amount, so the nutrition section is described accurately. The USDA has analyzed many foods containing tapioca, search results here, but in most cases, tapioca is only an ingredient, as it is commonly used in food manufacturing, especially for baby foods. Only the entry for dried tapioca "pearls" seems relevant for this article, and this is the same as the source in the nutrition section. Zefr (talk) 04:54, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Conflicting information
The introduction says "use has spread throughout South America." No mention of Asia. Yet the second half of the page is all about Asia and India. Edit, please. 2600:1700:1C64:8240:BCD6:2A3:28DF:87E2 (talk) 13:47, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Tapioca


text:
Josephine Baker

Freda Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 - April 12, 1975), naturalized as Joséphine Baker, was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in France. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant.

During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in its 1927 revue Un vent de folie caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting only of a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties.

Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She raised her children in France.

Baker aided the French Resistance during World War II. After the war, she was awarded the Resistance Medal by the French Committee of National Liberation, the Croix de Guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by General Charles de Gaulle. Baker sang: "I have two loves: my country and Paris."

Baker, who refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States, is noted for her contributions to the civil rights movement. In 1968, she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children.

On November 30, 2021, Baker was inducted into the Panthéon in Paris, the first black woman to receive one of the highest honors in France. As her resting place remains in Monaco Cemetery, a cenotaph was installed in vault 13 of the crypt in the Panthéon.

Early life

Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri. Baker's ancestry is unknown—her mother, Carrie, was adopted in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1886 by Richard and Elvira McDonald, both of whom were former slaves of African and Native American descent. Baker's estate identifies vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson as her natural father despite evidence to the contrary. In 1993, Josephine Baker's foster son Jean-Claude Baker published a biography titled Josephine: The hungry Heart, which was the culmination of decades of exhaustive research into Baker's life and career. In the book, he discusses at length the circumstances surrounding Baker's birth:

"The records of the city of St. Louis tell an almost unbelievable story. They show that (Baker's mother) Carrie McDonald ... was admitted to the (exclusively white) Female Hospital on May 3, 1906, diagnosed as pregnant. She was discharged on June 17, her baby, Freda J. McDonald having been born two weeks earlier. Why six weeks in the hospital? Especially for a black woman (of that time) who would customarily have had her baby at home with the help of a midwife? ... The father was identified (on the birth certificate) simply as "Edw"... I think Josephine's father was white - so did Josephine, so did her family...people in St. Louis say that (Baker's mother) had worked for a German family (around the time she became pregnant)... I have unraveled many mysteries associated with Josephine Baker, but the most painful mystery of her life, the mystery of her father's identity, I could not solve. The secret died with Carrie, who refused to the end to talk about it. She let people think Eddie Carson was the father, and Carson played along, (but) Josephine knew better."

Josephine McDonald spent her early life on 212 Targee Street (known by some St. Louis residents as Johnson Street) in the Chestnut Valley neighborhood of St. Louis, a racially mixed low-income area near Union Station, consisting mainly of rooming houses, brothels, and apartments without indoor plumbing. She was poorly dressed, hungry as a child, and developed street smarts playing in the railroad yards of Union Station.

Her mother married Arthur Martin, "a kind but perpetually unemployed man", with whom she had a son and two more daughters. She took in laundry to make ends meet, and, at eight years old, Josephine began working as a live-in domestic for white families in St. Louis. One woman abused her, burning Josephine's hands when the young girl put too much soap in the laundry.

In 1917, when she was 11, a terrified Josephine McDonald witnessed racial violence in East St. Louis. In a speech years later, she recalled what she had seen:"I can still see myself standing on the west bank of the Mississippi looking over into East St. Louis and watching the glow of the burning of Negro homes lighting the sky. We children stood huddled together in bewilderment ... frightened to death with the screams of the Negro families running across this bridge with nothing but what they had on their backs as their worldly belongings... So with this vision I ran and ran and ran..."

By age 12, she had dropped out of school. At 13, she worked as a waitress at the Old Chauffeur's Club at 3133 Pine Street. She also lived as a street child in the slums of St. Louis, sleeping in cardboard shelters, scavenging for food in garbage cans, making a living with street-corner dancing. It was at the Old Chauffeur's Club that Josephine met Willie Wells, whom she married at age 13, but the marriage lasted less than a year. Following her divorce from Wells, she found work with a street performance group called the Jones Family Band.

In her teens, she struggled to have a healthy relationship with her mother, who opposed her becoming an entertainer and scolded her for not tending to her second husband, William Howard Baker, whom she had married in 1921, at age 15. She soon left him when her vaudeville troupe was booked into a New York City venue. They divorced in 1925, during a period when her career success was beginning. Still, she continued to use his last name professionally for the rest of her life. Though Baker was often on the road, returning with gifts and money for her mother and younger half-sister, larger career opportunities drew her farther afield, to France.

Early career
Baker's unrelenting badgering of a local show manager led to her recruitment for the St. Louis Chorus vaudeville act. At the age of 13, she headed to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance and performed at the Plantation Club, Florence Mills's old stomping ground. After several auditions, she secured a role in the chorus line of a touring production of the groundbreaking and hugely successful Broadway revue "Shuffle Along" (1921) that helped bring public attention to Florence Mills, Paul Robeson, and Adelaide Hall.

In "Shuffle Along", Baker was a dancer at the end of a chorus line. Fearing she might be overshadowed by the others, she used her position to introduce a hint of comedy into her routine, making her stand out from her fellow dancers. She began in "Shuffle Along" with one of the U.S. touring companies, but, once she came of age, she was transferred to the Broadway production, where she remained for several months, until the show closed, in 1923. Next, Baker was cast in "The Chocolate Dandies", a revue that opened on September 1, 1924. Again, she was relegated to the chorus line. The show ran for 96 performances, finally closing in November 1925.

Pre War Paris and rise to fame
Baker sailed to Paris in 1925 and opened on October 2 in "Revue nègre" at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She was 19 at the time. In a 1974 interview with The Guardian, she explained that her first big break came in this bustling European city. "No, I didn't get my first break on Broadway. I was only in the chorus in 'Shuffle Along' and 'Chocolate Dandies.' I became famous first in France in the twenties. I just couldn't stand America and I was one of the first coloured Americans to move to Paris. Oh yes, Bricktop was there as well. Me and her were the only two, and we had a marvellous time. Of course, everyone who was anyone knew Bricky. And they got to know Miss Baker as well."

In Paris, she became an instant success for her erotic dancing and for appearing practically nude onstage. After a successful tour of Europe, she broke her contract and returned to France in 1926 to star at the Folies Bergère, setting the standard for her future acts.

Baker performed the Danse Sauvage, wearing little more than a skirt of strung-together artificial bananas. Her success coincided with the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, which gave birth to the term "Art Deco", as well as a renewed interest in non-Western art forms, including those of African origin, which Baker would represent. In later shows in Paris, she was often accompanied on stage by her pet cheetah, "Chiquita", donning a diamond collar. Chiquita frequently escaped into the orchestra pit, terrorizing the musicians and adding another element of excitement to the show.

After a while, Baker became the most successful American entertainer in France. Ernest Hemingway called her "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw." The author spent hours talking with her in Parisian bars. Picasso depicted her alluring beauty. Jean Cocteau became friendly with her and helped vault her to international stardom. Baker endorsed a "Bakerfix" hair gel, as well as bananas, shoes, and cosmetics, among other products.

In 1929, Baker became the first African-American star to visit Yugoslavia, which she included on a tour through Central Europe via the Orient Express. In Belgrade, she performed at Luxor Balkanska, then the city's most luxurious venue. In a nod to local culture, she included a Pirot kilim in her routine, and donated some of the show's proceeds to poor children of Serbia. In Zagreb, adoring crowds greeted her at the train station, but opposition from local clergy and morality police led to the cancellation of some of her shows.

During her travels in Yugoslavia, Baker was accompanied by "Count" Giuseppe Pepito Abatino. At the start of her career in France, Abatino, a Sicilian former stonemason who passed himself off as a count, persuaded her to let him manage her. He became not only Baker's manager, but her lover as well. The two could not marry because she was not yet divorced from her second husband, Willie Baker.

During this period, she released her most successful song, "J'ai deux amours" (1931). The song expresses the sentiment that "I have two loves, my country and Paris." In a 2007 book, Tim Bergfelder, Sue Harris, and Sarah Street claimed that "by the 1930's, Baker's assimilation into French popular culture had been completed by her association with the song." She starred in four films, which found success only in Europe: the silent film Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zouzou (1934) and Princesse Tam Tam (1935). She starred in Fausse Alerte in 1940. Bergfelder, Harris, and Street wrote that the silent film Siren of the Tropics "rehearses the 'primitive-to-Parisienne' narrative that would become the staple of Baker's cinema career, and exploited in particular her comic stage persona based on loose-limbed athleticism and artful clumsiness." The sound films "Zouzou" (1934) and "Princesse Tam Tam" were both star vehicles for Baker.

Under the management of Abatino, Baker's stage and public persona, as well as her singing voice, were transformed. In 1934, she took the lead in a revival of Jacques Offenbach's opera La créole, which premiered in December of that year for a six-month run at the Théâtre Marigny on the Champs-Élysées of Paris. In preparation for her performances, she went through months of training with a vocal coach. In the words of Shirley Bassey, who has cited Baker as her primary influence, "... she went from a petite danseuse sauvage with a decent voice to la grande diva magnifique... I swear in all my life I have never seen, and probably never shall see again, such a spectacular singer and performer."

Despite her popularity in France, Baker never attained the equivalent reputation in America. Her star turn in a 1936 revival of "Ziegfeld Follies" on Broadway was not commercially successful, and later in the run she was replaced by Gypsy Rose Lee. "Time" magazine referred to her as a "Negro wench ... whose dancing and singing might be topped anywhere outside of Paris", while other critics said her voice was "too thin" and "dwarf-like" to fill the Winter Garden Theatre. She returned to Europe heartbroken. This contributed to Baker's becoming a legal citizen of France and giving up her American citizenship.

Baker returned to Paris in 1937, married the French industrialist Jean Lion, and became a French citizen. They were married in the French town of Crèvecœur-le-Grand, in a wedding presided over by the mayor, Jammy Schmidt.

Between 1933 and 1937, Baker was a guest at the start of the Tour de France on four occasions.

World War II
In September 1939, when France declared war on Germany in response to the invasion of Poland, Baker was recruited by the Deuxième Bureau, the French military intelligence agency, as an "honorable correspondent". Baker worked with Jacques Abtey, the head of French counterintelligence in Paris. She socialized with the Germans at embassies, ministries, night clubs, charming them while secretly gathering information. Her café-society fame enabled her to rub shoulders with those in the know, from high-ranking Japanese officials to Italian and Vichy bureaucrats, reporting to Abtey what she heard. She attended parties and gathered information at the Italian embassy without raising suspicion.

When the Germans invaded France, Baker left Paris and went to the Château des Milandes, her home in the Dordogne département in the south of France. She housed people who were eager to help the Free French effort led by Charles de Gaulle and supplied them with visas. As an entertainer, Baker had an excuse for moving around Europe, visiting neutral nations such as Portugal, as well as some in South America. She carried information for transmission to England, about airfields, harbors, and German troop concentrations in the West of France. Notes were written in invisible ink on Baker's sheet music. As described in Jazz Cleopatra, "She specialized in gatherings at embassies and ministries, charming people as she had always done, but at the same time trying to remember interesting items to transmit".

Later in 1941, she and her entourage went to the French colonies in North Africa. The stated reason was Baker's health (since she was recovering from another case of pneumonia), but the real reason was to continue helping the Resistance. From a base in Morocco, she made tours of Spain. She pinned notes with the information she gathered inside her underwear (counting on her celebrity to avoid a strip search). She met the Pasha of Marrakech, whose support helped her through a miscarriage (the last of several). After the miscarriage, she developed an infection so severe it required a hysterectomy. The infection spread and she developed peritonitis and then sepsis. After her recovery (which she continued to fall in and out of), she started touring to entertain British, French, and American soldiers in North Africa. The Free French had no organized entertainment network for their troops, so Baker and her entourage managed for the most part on their own. They allowed no civilians and charged no admission.

After the war, Baker was awarded the Resistance Medal by the French Committee of National Liberation, the Croix de Guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.

Baker's last marriage, to French composer and conductor Jo Bouillon, ended around the time she adopted her 11th child.

Post War
In 1949, a reinvented Baker returned in triumph to the Folies Bergère. Bolstered by recognition of her wartime heroism, Baker the performer assumed a new gravitas, unafraid to take on serious music or subject matter. The engagement was a rousing success and reestablished Baker as one of Paris' pre-eminent entertainers. In 1951, Baker was invited back to the United States for a nightclub engagement in Miami. After winning a public battle over desegregating the club's audience, Baker followed up her sold-out run at the club with a national tour. Rave reviews and enthusiastic audiences accompanied her everywhere, climaxed by a parade in Harlem in honor of her new title: NAACP's "Woman of the Year".

In 1952, Baker was hired to crown the Queen of the Cavalcade of Jazz for the famed eighth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on June 1. Also featured to perform that day were Roy Brown and His Mighty Men, Anna Mae Winburn and Her Sweethearts, Toni Harper, Louis Jordan, Jimmy Witherspoon and Jerry Wallace.

An incident at the Stork Club in October 1951 interrupted and overturned her plans. Baker criticized the club's unwritten policy of discouraging Black patrons, then scolded columnist Walter Winchell, an old ally, for not rising to her defense. Winchell responded swiftly with a series of harsh public rebukes, including accusations of Communist sympathies (a serious charge at the time). The ensuing publicity resulted in the termination of Baker's work visa, forcing her to cancel all her engagements and return to France. It was almost a decade before U.S. officials allowed her back into the country.

In January 1966, Fidel Castro invited Baker to perform at the "Teatro Musical de La Habana" in Havana, Cuba, at the seventh-anniversary celebrations of his revolution. Her spectacular show in April broke attendance records. In 1968, Baker visited Yugoslavia and made appearances in Belgrade and in Skopje. In her later career, Baker faced financial troubles. She commented, "Nobody wants me, they've forgotten me"; but family members encouraged her to continue performing. In 1973 she performed at Carnegie Hall to a standing ovation.

The following year, she appeared in a Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium, and then at the Monegasque Red Cross Gala, celebrating her 50 years in French show business. Advancing years and exhaustion began to take their toll; she sometimes had trouble remembering lyrics, and her speeches between songs tended to ramble. She still continued to captivate audiences of all ages.

Civil rights activism
Although based in France, Baker supported the American Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. When she arrived in New York with her husband Jo, they were refused reservations at 36 hotels because of racial discrimination. This led her to write several articles about segregation in the United States. She also traveled in the South, giving a talk at Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, on "France, North Africa and the Equality of the Races in France".

She refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States, although she was offered $10,000 by a Miami club; the club eventually met her demands. Her insistence on mixed audiences helped to integrate live entertainment shows in the Las Vegas Valley. After this incident, she began receiving threatening phone calls from people claiming to be from the Ku Klux Klan but said publicly that she was not afraid of them.

In 1951, Baker made charges of racism against Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club in Manhattan, where she had been refused service. Actress Grace Kelly, who was at the club at the time, rushed over to Baker, took her by the arm and stormed out with her entire party, vowing never to return (although she returned on 3 January 1956 with Prince Rainier of Monaco). The two women became close friends after the incident.

When Baker was near bankruptcy, Kelly—by then the princess consort—offered her a villa and financial assistance. (During his work on the "Stork Club" book, author and "New York Times" reporter Ralph Blumenthal was contacted by Jean-Claude Baker, one of Baker's sons. He indicated that he had read his mother's FBI file and, using comparison of the file to the tapes, said he thought the Stork Club incident was overblown. )

Baker also worked with the NAACP. Her reputation as a crusader grew to such an extent that the NAACP had Sunday, May 20, 1951, declared "Josephine Baker Day". She was presented with life membership with the NAACP by Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche. The honor she was paid spurred her to further her crusading efforts with the "Save Willie McGee" rally. McGee was a black man in Mississippi convicted of raping a white woman in 1945 on the basis of dubious evidence, and sentenced to death. Baker attended rallies for McGee and wrote letters to Fielding Wright, the governor of Mississippi, asking him to spare McGee's life. Despite her efforts, McGee was executed in 1951. As the decorated war hero who was bolstered by the racial equality she experienced in Europe, Baker became increasingly regarded as controversial; some black people even began to shun her, fearing that her outspokenness and racy reputation from her earlier years would hurt the cause.

In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Baker was the only official female speaker. While wearing her Free French uniform emblazoned with her medal of the Légion d'honneur, she introduced the "Negro Women for Civil Rights". Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates were among those she acknowledged, and both gave brief speeches. Not everyone involved wanted Baker present at the March; some thought her time overseas had made her a woman of France, one who was disconnected from the Civil Rights issues going on in America. In her speech, one of the things Baker said:

"I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens, and into the houses of presidents and much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad. And when I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth. And then look out, 'cause when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world ..."

After King's assassination, his widow Coretta Scott King approached Baker in the Netherlands to ask if she would take her husband's place as leader of the Civil Rights Movement. After many days of thinking it over, Baker declined, saying her children were "too young to lose their mother."

Relationships
Baker's first marriage was to American Pullman porter Willie Wells when she was only 13 years old. The union was reportedly very unhappy, and the couple divorced soon after marrying. Another short-lived marriage followed in 1921, to William Howard Baker. Since her career was already taking off under that last name, she retained it after the divorce. Although she ultimately had four marriages to men, Jean-Claude Baker wrote that Josephine was bisexual and had several relationships with women.

In 1925, she began an extramarital relationship with the Belgian novelist Georges Simenon. On an ocean liner, in 1929, en route from South America to France, Baker had an affair with the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret). In 1937, Baker married Frenchman Jean Lion, but they separated in 1940. She married French composer and conductor Jo Bouillon in 1947, and their union lasted 14 years before also ending in divorce. Later, she was involved with the artist Robert Brady for a time, but they never married. Speculation exists that Baker was also involved in sexual liaisons, if not relationships, with blues singer Clara Smith, Ada "Bricktop" Smith, French novelist Colette, and Frida Kahlo.

Children

During her participation in the civil rights movement, Baker began to adopt children, forming a family which she often referred to as "The Rainbow Tribe". Baker wanted to prove that "children of different ethnicities and religions could still be brothers." She often took the children with her cross-country, and when they were at Château des Milandes, she arranged tours so visitors could walk the grounds and see how natural and happy the children were in "The Rainbow Tribe". Her estate featured hotels, a farm, rides, and the children singing and dancing for the audience. She charged an admission fee to visitors who entered and partook in the activities, which included watching the children play.

She created dramatic backstories for them, picking them with clear intent in mind: at one point, she wanted and planned to adopt a Jewish baby, but she settled for a French one. She also raised them in different religions in order to further her model for the world, taking two children from Algeria and raising one child as a Muslim and raising the other child as a Catholic. One member of the Tribe, Jean-Claude Baker, said: "She wanted a doll".

Baker raised two daughters, French-born Marianne and Moroccan-born Stellina, and 10 sons, Japanese-born Janot (born Teruya) and Akio, Colombian-born Luis, Finnish-born Jari (now Jarry), French-born Jean-Claude, Noël, and Moïse, Algerian-born Brahim (later Brian), Ivorian-born Koffi, and Venezuelan-born Mara. Later on, Josephine Baker would become the legal guardian of another boy, also named Jean-Claude, and considered him an unofficial addition to the Rainbow Tribe. For some time, Baker lived with her children and an enormous staff in the château in Dordogne, France, with her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon. Bouillon claimed that Baker bore one child, though it was stillborn in 1941, an incident that precipitated an emergency hysterectomy.

Baker forced Jarry to leave the château and live with his adoptive father, Jo Bouillon, in Argentina, at the age of 15, after discovering that he was gay. Moïse died of cancer in 1999, and Noël was diagnosed with schizophrenia and is in a psychiatric hospital as of 2009. Jean-Claude Baker, the unofficial addition to the Rainbow Tribe, committed suicide in 2015, aged 71.

Later years and death
In her later years Baker converted to Catholicism. In 1968, Baker lost her château owing to unpaid debts; afterwards Princess Grace offered her an apartment in Roquebrune, near Monaco.

Baker was back on stage at the Olympia in Paris in 1968, in Belgrade and at Carnegie Hall in 1973 and at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium and at the "Gala du Cirque" in Paris in 1974. On April 8, 1975, Baker starred in a retrospective revue at the Bobino in Paris, "Joséphine à Bobino 1975" celebrating her 50 years in show business. The revue, financed by Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, opened to rave reviews. Demand for seating was such that fold-out chairs had to be added to accommodate spectators. The opening-night audience included Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli.

Four days later, Baker was found lying peacefully in her bed surrounded by newspapers with glowing reviews of her performance. She was in a coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. She was taken to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where she died, aged 68, on April 12, 1975.

Baker received a full Catholic funeral at L'Église de la Madeleine, attracting more than 20,000 mourners. The only American-born woman to receive full French military honors at her funeral, Baker's funeral was the occasion of a huge procession. After a family service at Saint-Charles Church in Monte Carlo, Baker was interred at the Cimetière de Monaco.

Baker was a Freemason.

Legacy
"Place Joséphine Baker" (48.84135°N, 2.32375°W) in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris was named in her honor. She has also been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and on March 29, 1995, into the Hall of Famous Missourians. St. Louis's Channing Avenue was renamed Josephine Baker Boulevard, and a wax sculpture of Baker is on permanent display at The Griot Museum of Black History.

In 2015, she was inducted into the Legacy Walk in Chicago, Illinois. The Piscine Joséphine Baker is a swimming pool along the banks of the Seine in Paris named after her.

Writing in the on-line "BBC magazine" in late 2014, Darren Royston, historical dance teacher at RADA, credited Baker with being the Beyoncé of her day, and bringing the Charleston to Britain. Two of Baker's sons, Jean-Claude and Jarry (Jari), grew up to go into business together, running the restaurant Chez Josephine on Theatre Row, 42nd Street, New York City. It celebrates Baker's life and works.

Château des Milandes, a castle near Sarlat in the Dordogne, was Baker's home where she raised her twelve children. It is open to the public and displays her stage outfits including her banana skirt (of which there are apparently several). It also displays many family photographs and documents as well as her Legion of Honour medal. Most rooms are open for the public to walk through including bedrooms with the cots where her children slept, a huge kitchen, and a dining room where she often entertained large groups. The bathrooms were designed in art deco style but most rooms retained the French chateau style.

Baker continued to influence celebrities more than a century after her birth. In a 2003 interview with USA Today, Angelina Jolie cited Baker as "a model for the multiracial, multinational family she was beginning to create through adoption." Beyoncé performed Baker's banana dance at the Fashion Rocks concert at Radio City Music Hall in September 2006.

As a commemoration of Baker’s one hundredth birthday, a multi-media performance was written and shown in 2006. The following year,Josephine Baker: A Life of Le Jazz Hot! was recorded from the Baker inspired production by Imani Winds.

Writing on the 110th anniversary of her birth, "Vogue" described how her 1926 "danse sauvage" in her famous banana skirt "brilliantly manipulated the white male imagination" and "radically redefined notions of race and gender through style and performance in a way that continues to echo throughout fashion and music today, from Prada to Beyoncé."

On June 3, 2017, the 111th anniversary of her birth, Google released an animated Google Doodle, which consists of a slideshow chronicling her life and achievements.

On Thursday, November 22, 2018, a documentary entitled Josephine Baker: The Story of an Awakening, directed by Ilana Navaro, premiered at the Beirut Art Film Festival. It contains rarely seen archival footage, including some never before discovered, with music and narration.

In August 2019, Baker was one of those inducted in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro District noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields".

The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums) hosted an exhibition "Josephine Baker: Icon in Motion" from January 26 through April 28, 2024. The show displays photographs, film, and drawings covering her entertainment career through her involvement in civil rights. The exhibit includes Baker inspired works by her contemporaries.

Josephine Baker appears on the French 20-cent euro coins released in March 2024.

Panthéon in Paris
In May 2021, an online petition was set up by writer Laurent Kupferman asking that Joséphine Baker be honoured by being reburied at the Panthéon in Paris or being granted Panthéon honours, which would make her only the sixth woman at the mausoleum alongside Simone Veil, Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Marie Curie, Germaine Tillion, and Sophie Berthelot. In August 2021 the French President, Emmanuel Macron, announced that Baker's remains would be reburied at the Panthéon in November 2021, following the petition and continued requests from Baker's family since 2013. Her son Claude Bouillon-Baker, however, told Agence France-Presse that her body would remain in Monaco and only a plaque would be installed at the Panthéon. It was later announced that a symbolic casket containing soil from various locations where Baker had lived, including St. Louis, Paris, the South of France and Monaco, would be carried by the French Air and Space Force in a parade in Paris before a ceremony at the Panthéon where the casket was interred. The ceremony took place on Tuesday, November 30, 2021, and Baker thus became the first black woman to be honored in the secular temple to the "great men" of the French Republic.

Film and television
Diana Ross portrayed Baker in her Tony Award-winning Broadway and television show "An Evening with Diana Ross". When the show was made into an NBC television special entitled The Big Event: An Evening with Diana Ross, Ross again portrayed Baker. In the 1981 film Das Boot, a German submariner mimics Baker's Danse banane. In 1991, Baker's life story, The Josephine Baker Story, was broadcast on HBO. Lynn Whitfield portrayed Baker, and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special – becoming the first Black actress to win the award in this category. In the 1997 animated musical film Anastasia, Baker appears with her cheetah during the musical number "Paris Holds the Key (to Your Heart)". In 2002, Baker was portrayed by Karine Plantadit in the biopic Frida. A character who is based on Baker (topless, wearing the famous "banana skirt") appears in the opening sequence of the 2003 animated film The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville).

Her influence upon and assistance to the careers of the husband and wife dancers Carmen De Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder are discussed and illustrated in rare footage in the 2005 Linda Atkinson/Nick Doob documentary, Carmen and Geoffrey. In 2011, Sonia Rolland portrayed Baker in the film Midnight in Paris. In February 2017, Tiffany Daniels portrayed Baker in the "Timeless" television episode "The Lost Generation". In May 2020, Astrid Jones portrayed Baker in the El ministerio del tiempo television episode "La memoria del tiempo" (The memory of time). Baker is portrayed by actress Carra Patterson in "I Am.", the seventh episode of HBO's television series Lovecraft Country.

A biopic about the life of Josephine Baker was announced in November 2022. It will be directed by French director Maïmouna Doucouré and produced by French production company Studiocanal.

Stage
In 1986, Helen Gelzer portrayed Baker on the concept album Josephine – "a musical version of the life and times of Josephine Baker" with book, lyrics and music by Michael Wild. The musical director was Paul Maguire. The album was produced in conjunction with Baker's longtime friend Jack Hockett and Premier Box Office. A West End stage production of Josephine was premiered at the Fortune Theatre on June 4, 1989. It was produced by Ian Liston and financed in conjunction with Jack Hockett and Premier Box Office. Sadly, Jack Hockett passed away in 1988 before the show was staged. Heather Gillespie played the lead role of Josephine Baker, and Baker's husband Pepito was played by Roland Alexander. Peggy Phango played Bricktop.

In 2006, Jérôme Savary produced a musical, A La Recherche de Josephine – New Orleans for Ever (Looking for Josephine), starring Nicolle Rochelle. The story revolved around the history of jazz and Baker's career. Also in 2006, Deborah Cox starred in the musical Josephine at Florida's Asolo Theatre, directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely, with a book by Ellen Weston and Mark Hampton, music by Steve Dorff and lyrics by John Bettis. In July 2012, Cheryl Howard opened in The Sensational Josephine Baker, written and performed by Howard and directed by Ian Streicher at the Beckett Theatre of Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York City, just a few doors away from Chez Josephine. In July 2013, Cush Jumbo's debut play Josephine and I premiered at the Bush Theatre, London. It was re-produced in New York City at The Public Theater's Joe's Pub from February 27 to April 5, 2015.

In June 2016, Josephine, a burlesque cabaret dream play starring Tymisha Harris as Josephine Baker premiered at the 2016 San Diego Fringe Festival. The show has since played across North America and had a limited off-Broadway run in January–February 2018 at SoHo Playhouse in New York City. In late February 2017, a new play about Baker's later years, The Last Night of Josephine Baker by playwright Vincent Victoria, opened in Houston, Texas, starring Erica Young as "Past Josephine" and Jasmin Roland as "Present Josephine". Actress DeQuina Moore portrayed Baker in a biographic musical titled Josephine Tonight at The Ensemble Theatre in Houston, Texas, from June 27 to July 28, 2019. In September 2021, Theatre Royal, Bath, in conjunction with Oxford Playhouse and Wales Millennium Centre produced a UK touring production of Josephine co-written by Leona Allen and Jesse Briton who also directed the show. It toured the UK and featured Ebony Feare in the lead role as Josephine Baker.

Since 2016 Dynamite Lunchbox Entertainment of Orlando Florida has been touring Josephine, a burlesque cabaret dream play, co-created by and starring Tymisha Harris, to Fringe Festivals around Canada and the U.S. It played at the Montreal Fringe Festival in 2022. It is part of the 2022-2023 official season at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts in Montreal (spring 2023) as Josephine, A Musical Cabaret.

Literature
Baker appears in her role as a member of the French Resistance in Johannes Mario Simmel's 1960 novel, Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein (C'est pas toujours du caviar). The 2004 erotic novel Scandalous by British author Angela Campion uses Baker as its heroine and is inspired by Baker's sexual exploits and later adventures in the French Resistance. In the novel, Baker, working with a fictional Black Canadian lover named Drummer Thompson, foils a plot by French fascists in 1936 Paris. Baker was heavily featured in the 2012 book Josephine's Incredible Shoe & The Blackpearls by Peggi Eve Anderson-Randolph. In his novel Noire, la neige, Marseille, Editions Parenthèses, ISBN 978-2-86364-648-9, Pascal Rannou evokes the relationship between Valaida Snow and Josephine Baker, who is one of the main characters of this story.

Music
The Italian-Belgian francophone singer composer Salvatore Adamo pays tribute to Baker with the song "Noël Sur Les Milandes" (album Petit Bonheur – EMI 1970). The British band Sailor paid tribute on their 1974 self-titled debut album Sailor with the Georg Kajanus song "Josephine Baker" who "...stunned the world at the Folies Bergère..." The title track of the 1987 Premiata Forneria Marconi album Miss Baker was written in honor of the American dancer Josephine Baker. British singer-songwriter, Al Stewart wrote a song about Josephine Baker. It appears on the album Last days of the century from 1988.

Beyoncé Knowles has portrayed Baker on various occasions. During the 2006 Fashion Rocks show, Knowles performed "Dejá Vu" in a revised version of the Danse banane costume. In Knowles's video for "Naughty Girl", she is seen dancing in a huge champagne glass à la Baker. In I Am ... Yours: An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas, Beyoncé lists Baker as an influence of a section of her live show. In 2010, Keri Hilson portrayed Baker in her single "Pretty Girl Rock". In January 2022, Laquita Mitchell sang the title role in the New Orleans Opera production of Josephine by Tom Cipullo.

Artworks
In 1927, Alexander Calder created Josephine Baker (III), a wire sculpture of Baker, which is now displayed at the Museum of Modern Art. A nude portrait of Baker by Jean de Botton was the "cynosure for all eyes" when it was shown at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1931. When auctioned in Paris in 2021 the painting set a world record (EUR 179,200) for the artist. Henri Matisse created a mural-sized cut paper artwork titled La Négresse (1952–1953), possibly inspired by Baker. Hassan Musa depicted Baker in a 1994 series of paintings called Who needs Bananas? Season 14 of the Duolingo French Podcast is titled The Secret Life of Josephine Baker. The season finale was released in November 2023.

Documentaries
In 2006, Annette von Wangenheim directed the documentary Joséphine Baker: Black Diva in a White Mans World, about Baker's life and work from a perspective that analyses images of Black people in popular culture.

In 2018, Josephine Baker: The Story of an Awakening, directed by Ilana Navaro, premiered at the Beirut Art Film Festival in 2018.

title: Josephine Baker


text:
Sawshark

A sawshark or saw shark is a member of a shark order (Pristiophoriformes ) bearing a unique long, saw-like rostrum (snout or bill) edged with sharp teeth, which they use to slash and disable their prey. There are eight species within the Pristiophoriformes, including the longnose or common sawshark (Pristiophorus cirratus), shortnose sawshark (Pristiophorus nudipinnis), Japanese sawshark (Pristiophorus japonicas), Bahamas sawshark (Pristiophorus schroederi), sixgill sawshark (Pliotrema warreni), African dwarf sawshark (Pristiophorus nancyae), Lana's sawshark (Pristiophorus lanae) and the tropical sawshark (Pristiophorus delicatus).

Sawsharks are found in many areas around the world, most commonly in waters from the Indian Ocean to the southern Pacific Ocean. They are normally found at depths around 40–100 m, but can be found much lower in tropical regions. The Bahamas sawshark was discovered in deeper waters (640 m to 915 m) of the northwestern Caribbean.

Description and life cycle
Sawsharks have a pair of long barbels about halfway along the snout. They have two dorsal fins, but lack anal fins. Genus Pliotrema has six gill slits, and Pristiophorus the more usual five. The teeth of the saw typically alternate between large and small. Saw sharks reach a length of up to 5 feet and a weight of 18.7 pounds, with females tending to be slightly larger than males.

The body of a longnose saw shark is covered in tiny placoid scales: modified teeth covered in hard enamel. The body is a yellow-brown color which is sometimes covered in dark spots or blotches. This coloration allows the saw shark to easily blend with the sandy ocean floor.

These sharks typically feed on small fish, squid, and crustaceans, depending on species. The function of the sawshark barbels are not well understood, and neither is how they use their rostrum. It is possible they use it in a similar fashion as sawfishes, and hit prey with side-to-side swipes of the saw, crippling them. The saw could also be utilized against other predators in defense. The saw is covered with specialized sensory organs (ampullae of Lorenzini) which detect an electric field which is given off by buried prey.

Saw sharks life history is still poorly understood. Mating season occurs seasonally in coastal areas. Saw sharks are ovoviviparous meaning eggs hatch inside the mother. They have litters of 3–22 pups every 2 years. After 12 months of pregnancy, the pups are born at 30 cm long. While in the mother, pups' rostral teeth are angled backwards to avoid harming the mother. The life expectancy of sawsharks is still poorly understood, but they are thought to live to 10 years or more.

Human interaction
Among the different species of sawshark, all are listed on the IUCN Red List of 2017 as either data deficient or of least concern Saw sharks do not see much human interaction because of their deep habitats.

Species
There are currently ten known species of sawsharks across two genera in this family:
 * Pliotrema annae (Anna's sixgill sawshark)
 * Pliotrema kajae (Kaja's sixgill sawshark)
 * Pliotrema warreni (Warren's sixgill sawshark)
 * Pristiophorus cirratus (longnose sawshark or common sawshark)
 * Pristiophorus delicatus (tropical sawshark)
 * Pristiophorus japonicus (Japanese sawshark)
 * Pristiophorus lanae (Lana's sawshark or Philippine Sawshark)
 * Pristiophorus nancyae (African dwarf sawshark)
 * Pristiophorus nudipinnis (shortnose or southern sawshark)
 * Pristiophorus schroederi (Bahamas sawshark)

Sixgill sawshark
The sixgill sawshark (Pliotrema warreni) is known for its six pairs of gills located on its sides close to the head. They are pale brown in color, with a white underbelly. Along with their color, their size sets them apart from the other types of sawfish: The females are around 136 cm where the males are around 112 cm. Sixgill sawsharks feed on shrimp, squid and bony fish. They are located around the southern portion of South Africa, and Madagascar. Where found, they are considered a prize catch. They dwell in the rage of 37–500 m, preferring to stay in the warmer water. They have between 5 and 7 pups from 7–17 eggs. They have these young in the range of 37–50 m deep to make sure the pups are warm.

Longnose or common sawshark
The longnose sawshark aka the common sawshark (Pristiophorus cirratus) is one of 9 species within the family Pristiophoridae. It has unique physical characteristics which include a long, thin, and flattened snout. Midway down the snout, nasal barbels protrude on both sides of the snout. Near the barbels, the longnose sawshark possesses a pair of ampullae of Lorenzini. It is unique among the sawshark family by having a longer snout than any of its counter species. The longnose sawshark is not very large with lengths ranging from around 14 inches at birth to 38 inches in males and 44 inches in females. They can also grow to a weight of 18.7 pounds. They are known to swim in the waters off the southern coast of Australia's continental shelf. They can also be found in the eastern portion of the Indian Ocean. The longnose sawshark prefers to swim in both the open sea and coastal regions from the surface to a depth of 600m. The longnose Sawshark is known to mainly prey on small crustaceans. It uses its barbels to detect prey on the ocean floor which it then hits with its snout to immobilize it. Like all other sawsharks, the common sawshark has a long snout with rows of small teeth and barbels on either side. It has five gill slits on either side of its head and between 19 and 25 teeth on each side. Sawsharks appear to be one of the types of elasmobranch that are difficult or impossible to age using most commonly-used approaches that rely on vertebral banding.

Shortnose or southern sawshark
The shortnose sawshark aka the southern sawshark (Pristiophorus nudipinnis) is found in south-eastern Australian waters. Much of its distribution overlaps with that of the Common sawshark, however, it seems to occur less frequently. This species is similar in size as the common sawshark, but has a broader rostrum (saw) and a more even brown coloration. It also grows to be heavier than the common sawshark. Since the color pattern of the common sawshark may be more or less defined, the easiest way to separate this species from the common sawshark is the location of the barbels, which are closer to the mouth than the co-occurring common sawshark. Unlike the common sawshark, the southern sawshark likely feeds mainly on fishes.

Tropical sawshark
The tropical sawshark (Pristiophorus delicatus) a pale brown with a yellow hue, and an underbelly that is a pale yellow to white. This deep water dwelling fish is located off the Northeastern shore of Australia, in depths up to 176–405 m. It averages in size at about 95 cm. Other than its location and appearance little is known of the creature; it is hard to catch due to its ability to travel into the depths of the ocean.

Japanese sawshark
The Japanese sawshark (Pristiophorus japonicus) is a species of sawshark that lives off the coast of Japan, Korea, and Northern China. It swims at a depth of 500 m. It has around 15–26 large rostral teeth in front of the barbels, which are equal distance from the gills to the snout, and about 9–17 teeth behind the barbels. Like all sawsharks, the Japanese sawshark is ovoviviparous, and feeds on crustaceans and bottom dwelling organisms.

Lana's sawshark
Lana's sawshark (Pristiophorus lanae) is a species of sawshark that inhabits the Philippine coast. It was discovered in 1966 by Dave Ebert, who distinguished it as a new species of sawshark based on its number of rostral teeth. Lana's sawshark was named after Lana Ebert on the occasion of her graduation from the University of Francisco. It has a dark uniform brown color on the dorsal side and a pale white on the ventral side. It is slender bodied, has five gills on each side, and can grow to be around 70 cm.

African dwarf sawshark
The African dwarf sawshark (Pristiophorus nancyae) is a small five-gill sawshark that lives off the coast of Mozambique. It was first discovered in 2011 when a specimen was caught off the coast of Mozambique at a depth of 1,600 ft. The African dwarf sawshark has since then been spotted off the coasts of Kenya and Yemen. It can be distinguished from other sawsharks by its location, and by having its barbels closer to its mouth than the end of its rostrum. It has a brownish grey color and becomes white along the ventral side. Little else is known about the African Dwarf Sawshark as it is a newly discovered species.

Shortnose sawshark
The shortnose sawshark (Pristiophorus nudipinnis) is similar to the longnose sawshark; however, it has a slightly compressed body and shorter more narrow rostrum. It has 13 teeth in front of its barbels and 6 behind. The shortnose sawshark tends to be uniformly slate grey with no markings on its dorsal side and pale white or cream on its ventral side. Females reach around 124 cm (49 in) long, and males reach around 110 cm (43 in) long. These sharks can live to be up to 9 years old. Like other sawsharks, the Short Nose lives a benthic lifestyle and feeds on benthic invertebrates. It uses its barbels to detect life on the ocean floor which it then paralyzes with its rostrum. The species is ovoviviparous and tends to give birth to a litter of 7–14 pups biannually. It inhabits ocean floors off the coast of Australia.

Bahamas sawshark
The Bahamas sawsharks (Pristiophorus schroeder) have very little information on them. Studies are being done daily to learn more about the deep sea dweller. They are located near Cuba, Florida, and the Bahamas (hence their name) where they dwell in the depths of 400–1000 m. As far as their appearance they can be identified by their snouts with teeth which appear as a saw, as well as their length, they are averaged at 80 cm in length.

Comparison with sawfish
Saw sharks and sawfish are cartilaginous fish possessing large saws. These are the only two fish that have a long blade-like snout. Although they are similar in appearances, saw sharks are distinct from sawfish. Sawfish are not sharks, but a type of ray. The gill slits of the sawfishes are positioned on the underside like a ray, but the gill slits of the saw shark are positioned on the side like a shark. Sawfish can have a much larger size, lack barbels, and have evenly sized teeth rather than alternating teeth of the saw shark. Clear difference is that a sawfish has no barbels and a saw shark has a prominent pair halfway along the saw. The saw shark uses these like other bottom fish, as a kind of antennae, feeling the way along the ocean bottom until it finds some prey of interest. Both the saw shark and the sawfish utilize the electroreceptors on the saw, ampullae of Lorenzini, to detect the electric field given off by buried prey.

title: Sawshark


text:
Talk:Gannet

Default OED link is a behind a paywall
This link will provide an image of the citation--without violating copyright-- but I don't know how to add it. I'm hoping someone here can do so. https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=oed+gannet&= --Dhugot (talk) 15:40, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Untitled
So does Gannet belong to Pelecaniformes or Passeriformes?

 * oops!. At least not quite as bad as the Gray Whale I had as a marsupial. thanks. jimfbleak 07:49 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Pelecaniformes vs Passeriformes
The scientific classification box still shows order Passeriformes instead of Pelecaniformes. I know nothing about this, so I don't know if it's correct or not, but it doesn't match the information given in the rest of the section and the previous comment would suggest it should be Pelecaniformes.

Wet their Nests?
Is there any truth to Monty Python's suggestion that Gannets wet their nests?

Yes, their nests are constructed from Guano.

Actually, this reference is a later appropriation by Monty Python. The original sketch is from At Last the 1948 Show, with John Cleese as the bookseller and Marty Feldman as the customer. Vincent (talk) 17:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Merge
I suggest merging both 'Booby' and 'Gannet' into 'Sulidae'. Maias 03:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

If anyone has comments for or against, please discuss at Talk:Sulidae. Maias 03:44, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

or expand?
wouldn't it be better to expand the article? There's not yet much information on here, but wikibirds is still a developing project. I'd rather see more inofrmation than less.--Jethrobrice 19:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Rep by pop?
Isn't Ile Bonaventure, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, largest single population, with 20K nesting pairs? Trekphiler 17:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Systematics and Evolution
'increased competition due to the spread of marine mammals and/or supernova activity'

Where's the evidence for this "supernova activity"? There are a plethora of sites on the web that carry some similar assertion, usually linked to the extinction of the mammoths, and all equally unsubstantiated. Where is the primary literature? All I've been able to find is a paper that Richard Firestone delivered to a seminar, that was subsequently cited by a couple of on-line science news sites. In other words, nothing at all in the peer-reviewed literature.

How seriously can you take this, when other sites on the web link this famous supernova to the disappearance of Atlantis? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.68.255.175 (talk) 13:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Guga
Guga is the Highland Gaelic name for the young gannet. Guga is hunted off the North West Coast of the Isle of Lewis and is a prized traditional cuisine. It needs its own article let alone more of a mention here. I suggest the book "The Guga Hunters" as an excellent source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.97.112 (talk) 21:51, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Colony size
All in East Lothian know the Bass is the largest colony of what used to be Sula Bassanus, so it was odd to see it relegated on this page. Citation and stats here: http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman-2-7475/environment/bass-rock-a-hard-place-for-gannets-1-2316938. Perhaps someone more competent than I can corroborate and correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.145.70 (talk) 10:26, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Alas, that link no longer works. I agree the article needs to be changed. The article on Bass Rock says that it has the largest colony. I don't know how that 20% figure was calculated for St. Kilda. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 16:59, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

More on behavior
Planet Earth (or a similar documentary) showed a flock hunting together. Do they always hunt this way? The same documentary also said that they spend years out on the water, only returning to land to breed. No mention of this in the article. If this is true, how do they sleep, on the wing, on the water? I found a forum where some guy thought that they slept on the water, but that is a poor reference. Mattman944 (talk) 01:22, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Boobies
I was about to remove the reference to boobies when I decided to check the link. Who knew! Vincent (talk) 17:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Gannet