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Scientists Discover Another 'Extinct' Tree
meta5table writes "Scientists have just discovered a previously extinct tree in Mauritius. This is not quite as significant as the Wollemi Pine, but it is still pretty cool. Now I just wish someone would find a thylacine."
Figure this, I live in Mauritius which is a small island of a million and a few thousand inhabitants and I first read about this tree on Slashdot.
I think I need to take a break from the WWW.
Mauritius is the island where the Dodo bird lived, before being hunt to extinction by the early visitors to the island.
Mauritius and its neighbouring isles are homes for many rare trees and animals, among which are the VERY rare Pink Pigeon, Echo Parakeet and the Mauritian Kestrel which was once, the World's rarest bird.
For those who care to know more visit
http://www.maurinet.com/wildlife.html
http://www.themyp.com
http://www.mauritian-wildlife.org
Mammals drink moms milk.
They are split into three categories: placental, marsupials and monotremes.
Placental=gestate in womb, these are most common, like homo sapiens and pigs.
Marsupials=pouched animals, mother has no placenta, like kangaroos.
Monotremes=rare these animals are egg-laying, a reminder of things past, like the duck-billed platypus.
You are welcome.
You don't understand either the scientific knowledge to be gained from studying it, or the human interest in seeing a glimpse into life on earth 150M yrs ago?
It also happens to produce Taxol, so has huge commercial possibilities medicinally as well as horticulturally.
I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading from /.ers about how "trees aren't news for geeks". Come on!!! Trees are where books come from!!! Trees are exercises in fractal mathematics!!! Trees are how apes like us escaped extinction from feline and canine predators!!! Trees are just plain cool in several meanings of the word!!! And extinct trees are yet another arena to play Jurassic Park!!!
Speaking of extinct trees (or those almost so), nothing can top the story of the American Chestnut ... from "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" fame. More details here. There is hope that one day these magnificent trees will be
revived ...
Now I just wish someone would find a thylacine. .....
We need to find two; you see, when a mummy thylacine and a daddy thylacine love each other very much
My parents have a 50-year-old blight-resistant American Chestnut in the front yard in NH. Beautiful tree, great chestnut yield, and about a week's worth of work to pick up all the "flowers" and "porcupine eggs" every year. The town wanted to cut it down to widen a road, but when they realized what it was, they left it alone.
I'm not an ecofreak, but it takes profound ignorance (or denial) to not see that decreased biodiversity will create a lot of problems. We are currently in the midst of the sixth great extinction that has occurred during the history of life. If current trends continue, within a century this event will become both the fastest and the most sweeping extinction ever, beating even the great Permian extinction of about 275 million years ago, and absolutely dwarfing the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) dinosaur extinction caused by a giant meteorite 60 million years ago. Every day more than a hundred species disappear. One or two have probably evaporated while you are reading this post.
Ha ha, another tropical tree is extinct. Or beetle. Or slouch rat. Or passion flower. The mall is still open, the sky is still blue, and besides, we've got films of all that stuff we can watch on the Discovery Channel. So what?
Messing with biodiversity is no laughing matter. After the Permian extinction, fungi were temporarily the dominant life form on Earth. Sure, in a few tens of millions of years, whatever's left after we're finished will begin speciating again, and eventually restore biodiversity. In the meantime, however, remember that we evolved not as a stand-alone species, but as nodes in a great web, a network of interdependent creatures, feedback loops, and survival dependencies. Air, water, and soil all depend on this network. Our food, our health, our very breath depend on it. (For the cost/benefit analysis crowd -- our economy depends on it.) Like a well-designed computer net, the web of life is fault-tolerant and self-healing...up to a point. After that point, the network crashes and burns.
Wilson suggests imagining sitting in the window seat of a jetliner as it taxis to the runway. As you look out on the wing you can see the rows of rivets holding the wings together. Each makes an undetermined contribution to the ability of the plane to fly. Now, as you watch, a few of the rivets start popping out. The process continues...at what point do you start to wonder about the integrity of the wing? More succinctly, at what point do you start to feel afraid?
Biodiversity is like this. No one can say when the crucial rivet has popped. But even if the crucial rivet is still (temporarily) in place, risk begins accumulating at an ever-increasing rate. We are right to be afraid of losing diversity. Already, we've undertaken enormous risk. Is there anyone out there who really thinks we need to keep converting the biomass of other species into ever more biomass of our own? (For starters, I can think of better things to do with Imperial Woodpecker meat than turn it into Mexican Truckdriver meat.) Nothing will get better with billions more people, and a lot of things will get worse.
If you want to check out some well-written and interesting books on the subject, Wilson's book Biodiversity is a good read, as well as Roger Lewin's and Richard Leakey's book The Sixth Extinction.
While moving a crated cage a worker slips and is dragged screaming into the cage before his comrades can rescue him. The camera pans past a rainsoaked corner of the crate as lightning flashes...Danger: Jurassic Flytrap!
Brrr....
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Thylacine@Home : use your computer to help search the Tasmanian northlands for signs of this elusive marsupial cat-dog.
--Blair
"I see a great need."
The last pyrenesse mountain goat left in the world was on a 24hr watch by park rangers. There was talk of cloning it, using a related goat species as the surrogate mother.
And then a tree fell on it...
Plants seem to be a little more resistant to extinction. Even though all members of the species have disappeared, the seeds may still exist, and they can remain fertile for many years before finally sprouting.
This may have happened here.
Do viable, yet ungerminated, seeds count as an extant tree?
I'm no expert, but I suppose if no viable plants or seeds can be found, it should be considered extinct. Finding seeds in soil is exceedingly difficult to do; if no seeds exist "in captivity", it is assumed to be extinct.
You're right. From now on I will refer to them as the Peoples of the Adirondack, Delaware, Massachuset, Narranganset, Potomac, Illinois, Miami, Alabama, Ottawa, Waco, Wichita, Mohave, Shasta, Yuma, Erie, Huron, Susquehanna, Natchez, Mobile, Yakima, Wallawalla, Muskogee, Spokan, Iowa, Missouri, Omaha, Kansa, Biloxi, Dakota, Hatteras, Klamath, Caddo, Tillamook, Washoe, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Laguna, Santa Ana, Winnebago, Pecos, Cheyenne, Menominee, Yankton, Apalachee, Chinook, Catawba, Santa Clara, Taos, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Comanche, Shoshone, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Mescalero, Navajo, Nez Perce, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Pawnee, Chickahominy, Flathead, Santee, Assiniboin, Oglala, Miniconjou, Osage, Crow, Brule, Hunkpapa, Pima, Zuni, Hopi, Paiute, Creek, Kickapoo, Ojibwa, and Shinnicock Tribes.
It's awful how the Peoples of the Adirondack, Delaware, Massachuset, Narranganset, Potomac, Illinois, Miami, Alabama, Ottawa, Waco, Wichita, Mohave, Shasta, Yuma, Erie, Huron, Susquehanna, Natchez, Mobile, Yakima, Wallawalla, Muskogee, Spokan, Iowa, Missouri, Omaha, Kansa, Biloxi, Dakota, Hatteras, Klamath, Caddo, Tillamook, Washoe, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Laguna, Santa Ana, Winnebago, Pecos, Cheyenne, Menominee, Yankton, Apalachee, Chinook, Catawba, Santa Clara, Taos, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Comanche, Shoshone, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Mescalero, Navajo, Nez Perce, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Pawnee, Chickahominy, Flathead, Santee, Assiniboin, Oglala, Miniconjou, Osage, Crow, Brule, Hunkpapa, Pima, Zuni, Hopi, Paiute, Creek, Kickapoo, Ojibwa, and Shinnicock Tribes were persecuted and faced genocide.
I truly feel sorry for the Peoples of the Adirondack, Delaware, Massachuset, Narranganset, Potomac, Illinois, Miami, Alabama, Ottawa, Waco, Wichita, Mohave, Shasta, Yuma, Erie, Huron, Susquehanna, Natchez, Mobile, Yakima, Wallawalla, Muskogee, Spokan, Iowa, Missouri, Omaha, Kansa, Biloxi, Dakota, Hatteras, Klamath, Caddo, Tillamook, Washoe, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Laguna, Santa Ana, Winnebago, Pecos, Cheyenne, Menominee, Yankton, Apalachee, Chinook, Catawba, Santa Clara, Taos, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Comanche, Shoshone, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Mescalero, Navajo, Nez Perce, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Pawnee, Chickahominy, Flathead, Santee, Assiniboin, Oglala, Miniconjou, Osage, Crow, Brule, Hunkpapa, Pima, Zuni, Hopi, Paiute, Creek, Kickapoo, Ojibwa, and Shinnicock Tribes.
m00.