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New Zealand Tree Stuck In Evolutionary Time Warp

Posted by Soulskill on from the decompress-the-shuttlebay dept.

sciencehabit writes "A eucalyptus-like tree from New Zealand is still waging a battle that should have ended over 500 years ago. The tree continues to sport evolutionary adaptations, such as barbed leaves, to protect it from a large, flightless bird known as a moa. There's just one problem: the moa went extinct around 1500 AD."

9 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. In other related news... by MenThal · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...why do men still have nipples. Film at 11.

  2. Re:Wrong comparison ? by noidentity · · Score: 5, Funny

    A register-limited processor from the 1970s is still waging a battle that should have ended over 150 months ago. The processor continues to sport evolutionary adaptations, such as compactly-encoded instructions, to protect it from a small, slow memory configuration known as 640K. There's just one problem: that configuration went extinct around 1990 AD.

  3. Lets do the Time Warp by retech · · Score: 5, Funny
    If you consider two facts this tree comes as no surprise:
    • Richard O'Brien, the creator of RHPS and the Time warp comes from NZ
    • NZ television is two seasons behind the rest of the world

    The tree is just keeping in step with it's environment.

  4. In other news... by johno.ie · · Score: 5, Funny

    It was discovered today that newborn humans still grow teeth. Scientists are baffled because the human species developed the technology to build smoothie machines 3 generations ago.

    --
    872835240
  5. Re:It is a common misconception about evolution by funkatron · · Score: 5, Funny

    Could be design by comitee. I never really heard a good reason for choosing monotheism over polytheism.

    --
    "Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
  6. Re:Evolution is great. (mostly) by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

    the plant defenses didn't actually contribute much if anything towards making Moas extinct, human presence did most of the work there, if not all.

    They didn't become extinct, they evolved to eat grass instead of trees.

    Haven't you heard of a lawn moa?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  7. Re:Easily explainable. by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh, please. The idea of a utopian ideal where "we've outgrown greed" is so funny in both evolutionary terms and biological terms it's... well, it's like thinking that randomness ill cause your hostess's underwear to jump several feet to the left for quantum uncertainty reasons. It can be amusing to discuss, but it isn't going to happen for "evolutionary" reasons. You'll just have to get her underwear moved the normal way, alcohol and fast talking.

  8. Re:Easily explainable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Look, as far as the tree is concerned, the defence is working - it hasn't been attacked by a moa for 500 years. Why would it change?

  9. Re:Easily explainable. by SteveFoerster · · Score: 5, Funny

    How about your kids go first. Then they can all work for my kids.

    --
    Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org