Extinction is natural. Healthy even. You can learn/research all about it. It's called background extinction. That being said, extinction rates have shot up in modern times, increasing exponentially since the industrial revolution. I am definitely not that smart, but even I can see the connections. This is bad. Even with our propensity to ruin habitats, we should be more careful about what species we destroy, especially in the tropics, because that biodiversity provides a lot of our medical resources. So if you're too selfish to help animals and plants out of the kindness of your heart, do it for your health. We get drugs from those things.
That being said, I'm also of the opinion that we should appreciate some of the things we never had to compete with. Like Dunkleosteus.
Dunkleosteus is a prehistoric member of the extinct class Placodermi. Placodermi means plate skinned, and you'll see why.
This is what Dunkleosteus looked like:
Would you go swimming in the ocean if you knew that thing was down there somewhere? No. That thing is terrifying. The force of that bite would be around 8000lbs/square inch [right in league with T-rex]. It was over 30 feet long and found in shallow seas, right where you'd want to swim.
Dunkleosteus made a guest appearance in Dinotopia, for those of us who can't contain our nerdiness [It is an awesome book, I hope all of you have]. The Fish that guarded the Diamond cave, which was the entrance to the World Beneath, was a dunkleosteus [and please don't judge me for not even having to look that up]. It attacked the Remora.
A lot of extinct species are being revived in awful movies, like Megalodon. This giant shark was made to look truly ridiculous in Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus and Mega Shark versus Crocosaurus. Painful. The shark wouldn't have had the brain capacity to realize it should be embarrassed, so I will have to be embarrassed for it.
Moral of this, if you're going to revive extinct species in the entertainment business, do it like Dinotopia, not like Mega Shark. You will turn an impressive predator into a laughing stock.
Rare, for sure, but I just got to see a guest lecture done by Dr. Paul Alan Cox, who is an Ethnobotanist. A truly brilliant man, who I just enjoyed so much, and he's doing mind blowing research with Cycads, specifically, on how cycads can cause ALS, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. This work is done as the Institute for EthnoMedicine, and if you want the smart version, go check it out here.
In a nutshell, he discovered this protein [called BMAA] when he was checking out a village in Guam that had a really high percentage of all these diseases. He found out that it was produced by a known group of cyanobacteria [which are really cool themselves, their photosynthetic and nitrogen fixing, and they created Earth's oxygen atmosphere, they're one of the reasons we live on this planet, so before you think I'm blaming all these diseases on cyanobacteria, take that into account], and that these cyanobacteria can be found in the roots of cycads. Anything that eats cycad seeds gets some of this BMAA protein. Over time the accumulation increases risk of or causes these diseases.
This means that exposure to cyanobacteria may be one of the causes of ALS/Alzheimer's/Parkinson's. So that means that no matter where you live, don't eat things that eat cycad seeds. For the Chamorro people in Guam, that means no more fruit bats and deer, as well as the flour they make from the seeds themselves. Cycads aren't commonly consumed in such high quantities, and they're a largely tropical species, so most people don't have to worry about it, and all these diseases are probably cause by other things anyway, but it's worth the heads up. And don't just willy nilly chop your cycad down because you think it's trying to kill you. As long as you're not eating/licking it, you're fine.
The important stuff I'm hoping you'll take away from this article is that plants, while not cognizant like we are, have a far superior arsenal than we have. It's called biochemistry. BMAA protein is thought to have been developed as a defense against the dinosaurs [the herbivorous ones]. These plants have been around far longer than us, and we should be aware that their defenses are just as complicated and beautiful as ours. Also, this research has the potential to develop into drugs and cures, so you guys should really check it out. It's an extraordinary discovery.
I was watching Finding Nemo with several small children, and I was finding it a bit more interesting since I've now taken a Marine Biology class, and I'm currently enrolled in a class called Sharks. It is an awesome class, and I'm enjoying it a great deal. Then we got to the part where Marlin (the daddy Clown Fish) meets Bruce (the Great White Shark), Anchor (the Hammerhead Shark), and Chum (the Mako Shark). This part was fine for everyone else, but I discovered something. Bruce, who was undoubtedly intended to be a male shark, is, in fact, female.
Male cartilaginous fishes have claspers, sort of modified reproductive fins, formed from the posterior part of their pelvic fins.
Compare:
Bruce
To a real Great White Shark
The animators probably thought that was too obscene, or something ridiculous, and didn't want kids asking about it. But if my sharks class ruined Finding Nemo for me, I'm going to ruin it for everybody else.
It's related to animals, I promise. Not that Willem Dafoe isn't completely awesome, but this just makes him even more so. Dafoe is in a movie I am just now hearing about. It came out a while ago in Australia. It's called "The Hunter," and it's about thylacines. For those of you who appreciate the vernacular, the Tasmanian Tiger.
I have not seen this movie. I am excited for a couple reasons. First, it has Willem Dafoe in it. Second, it's about thylacines, and not enough people in the world know about thylacines. I am worried for only one reason. I don't know if they get all the information right. This is a huge problem in the movie industry, they will bend facts to fit their plot, and won't care about the rest of it, or they'll take one example and act like that is the norm for the species.
On that note, let's discuss the thylacine so that everyone knows what's what.
Thylacinus cynocephalus is extinct. People may not think so, but everyone is pretty sure they are, which is a huge disappointment. There are sightings all the time, but no confirmations. I find this to be a horrible loss. Thylacines are probably one of the most awesome mammals this earth has produced. These things are so cool, Chuck Norris pales in comparison.
Thylacines are carnivorous marsupials. Historically they occupied Tasmania, Australia, and Papua New Guinea, and were quite wide spread. They are roughly the size of an adult German Shepard dog, but the limb-length ratio is different. Dogs have long legs in proportion to their trunk [spinal column minus tail], thylacine legs are shorter, suggesting that they stalk their prey. They have yellow-brown or grey-brown fur, with 15-20 black/dark brow stripes from the back of the shoulder blades to just before the tail. The tail itself is not abruptly separated from the body, but tapers, like the tail of a kangaroo. They have 46 teeth adapted for slicing and crushing. They could open their jaw ridiculously wide, lowering their bottom jaw to an angle of (SOME SAY) almost 180 degrees. This, however, would be anatomically impossible for them to do without dislocating the mandible.
The female marsupial had a back-opening pouch, unlike other marsupials, namely the kangaroo, who has a front-opening pouch. Estimated life span in the wild is 8-12 years. They can jump 6-8 feet. Their preferred habitat is unknown, as well as their hunting methods and preferred prey. Blood samples suggest that they are closely related to dasyurids [read: Tasmanian Devil, but other things too].
Please look up more about the thylacine, the more you read, the more you'll be pissed that they're extinct and we can't go to a zoo and look at them, or tag one and see if they actually do hunt in packs.
You can do more research on your own, there's about a million websites for the thylacine. Here's a list of papers written about them, too:
ABC Video (1994). Clash of The Carnivores. Natural History Unit.
Guiler, E. (1985). Thylacine: The Tragedy of The Tasmanian Tiger. Oxford Uni. Press.
Guiler, E. & Godard, P. (1998). Tasmanian Tiger: A lesson to be learnt. Abrolhos Publishing.
Park, A. (1986). A Tasmanian Tiger Extinct or Merely Elusive. Aust Geographic. Vol. 1 No 3.
Smith, S. J. (1980). The Tasmanian Tiger. NPWS, Tas.
I should state, before I continue with my rant, that I am not an ornithologist.
Woody the Woodpecker. He is a beloved character with a Wikipedia article miles long. The reason I am bringing him up is because Wikipedia says that he is an "anthropomorphic acorn woodpecker." I completely disagree with this claim. Any person with eyes will tell you that the two simply do not match, no matter how anthropomorphous Woody gets.
This is Woody.
This is an Acorn Woodpecker.
This is a Red-headed Woodpecker, and what I believe Woody should be classified as an anthropomorphized version of. I am basing this entirely on the head. Truthfully Woody doesn't look like any species of woodpecker I've ever seen.
I am not a fan of plants. I'm just not. The coolest ones are the carnivorous ones, and once the plant stops killing insects and small frogs and cool things, I run out of interest. That being said, plants are kind of important. I suggest reading The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. To be sure, it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but plants are important. I am learning. Also, I broke down and bought a field guide to trees. It's ruining my life, because I'm not good enough to classify anything without the help of flower blooms.
Anyway, if you want the short version, Michael Pollan also gives a truly wonderful talk on TED [GREAT WEBSITE, CHECK IT OUT] which I'm including a link to, so that way you can be lazy and take the easy way out.
Please do consider actually reading it, though, Michael Pollan is a brilliant guy, and we should all appreciate plants a little bit more.
