Weird and Wonderful Animals Heading for Extinction

[AlexH]

These are some of my favourite animals, sometimes because they look like something from a time long ago and nothing else on earth, like the shoebill. I'm not sure I've seen the purple frog before. I looked for more information, and they've been evolving independently for 100 million years in a small area of India.

'Billions of years of evolutionary history' under threat

'Weird and wonderful' animals unlike anything else on Earth are sliding toward extinction, say scientists.

www.bbc.co.uk

Do you have any favourite unusual animals?

 

[AlexH]

Here's the fog beetle, a creature scientists are studying to help design roof tiles to capture fog in areas of drought:

The ingenuity of animals knows no bounds! I recommend this podcast for similar stories: BBC World Service - 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter - Downloads

 

[Guttersnipe]

Tardigrades are cute. Platypi are cool just considering that they're extant monotremes (along with echidnas).

 

[AlexH]

Tardigrades are cute.

Wow! I am a bit freaked out by things that small when seen through a microscope but (AKA "water bears"):

• These creatures look like the hookah-smoking caterpillar from "Alice in Wonderland."
• They can also survive radiation, boiling liquids, massive amounts of pressure of up to six times the pressure of the deepest part of the ocean and even the vacuum of space without any protection.
• While in cryptobiosis, tardigrades' metabolic activity gets as low as 0.01 percent of normal levels, and their organs are protected by a sugary gel called trehalose.

Facts from Facts About Tardigrades

And more info: Tardigrades return from the dead

Tardigrades are definitely NOT in danger of becoming extinct.

 

[-K2-]

I'm not educated enough to generate logical conclusions on the subject, yet I do wonder if in some rare cases we're not concerned about saving some things that aren't meant to be saved? Without reservation, I'll agree that mankind has prematurely, unnecessarily, and even detrimentally killed off numerous species before their time...and I'd also agree that we've affected the environment in negative ways which alters evolutionary paths to the negative.

But, some species, I suspect, are meant to fade into history so others can take up the mantle of what they contribute and perhaps even force evolution to improve the whole (as it does) , overall. Perhaps mankind is even one of those that needs to go...it's all above my pay grade, however.

K2

 

[Astro Pen]

I think biodiversity is the most important issue facing the planet. The numbers of everything, beetles, plants, fungi etc' going extinct each year is horrifying.
I like Pangolins, in fact I have a small carved wooden one on the desk in front of me.
I also have a Trilobite fossil, but it's too late for them

Here's a mother and baby pangolin

 

[AlexH]

I'm not educated enough to generate logical conclusions on the subject, yet I do wonder if in some rare cases we're not concerned about saving some things that aren't meant to be saved? Without reservation, I'll agree that mankind has prematurely, unnecessarily, and even detrimentally killed off numerous species before their time...and I'd also agree that we've affected the environment in negative ways which alters evolutionary paths to the negative.

But, some species, I suspect, are meant to fade into history so others can take up the mantle of what they contribute and perhaps even force evolution to improve the whole (as it does) , overall. Perhaps mankind is even one of those that needs to go...it's all above my pay grade, however.

K2

It's a good point, but it must be a very rare case. Maybe cases we don't even know about given there are so many undiscovered species. Many endangered species have been around way longer than humans, and it's totally our destructive nature that's leading to their extinction. Extinctions have always happened of course, though I remember one well-known study a few years ago that said humans have accelerated species extinction by a thousand times.

There's also the argument of which species we save. For the amount of money spent on saving pandas, for example, numerous other species could have a much better chance. The WWF couldn't afford their marquee animal to become extinct. Sadly, some animals aren't considered cute enough to protect. Pandas are also the most expensive animal to keep in captivity. Not that I have anything against pandas! They're wonderful creatures amongst many wonderful creatures.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Wow! I am a bit freaked out by things that small when seen through a microscope but (AKA "water bears"):

• These creatures look like the hookah-smoking caterpillar from "Alice in Wonderland."
• They can also survive radiation, boiling liquids, massive amounts of pressure of up to six times the pressure of the deepest part of the ocean and even the vacuum of space without any protection.
• While in cryptobiosis, tardigrades' metabolic activity gets as low as 0.01 percent of normal levels, and their organs are protected by a sugary gel called trehalose.

Facts from Facts About Tardigrades

And more info: Tardigrades return from the dead

Tardigrades are definitely NOT in danger of becoming extinct.

I didn't read the whole title. My bad.

 

[.matthew.]

But, some species, I suspect, are meant to fade into history so others can take up the mantle of what they contribute and perhaps even force evolution to improve the whole (as it does) , overall. Perhaps mankind is even one of those that needs to go...it's all above my pay grade, however.

Well there is also the argument that we as humans are the same part of evolutionary nature as the rest of the animals and anything we force to go extinct is just part of evolution as a whole. You don't see many people kicking off when another species gets bigger.

Sadly, some animals aren't considered cute enough to protect. Pandas are also the most expensive animal to keep in captivity. Not that I have anything against pandas! They're wonderful creatures amongst many wonderful creatures.

Pandas are indeed adorable and I think we should only save the cute creatures. Also that we should kill all spiders and probably most flies. But yea, off topic a little there, so back to what I wanted to say originally. Pandas fully deserve to go extinct, the females are barely in heat for a month and the males often can't figure out how to mate at all.

 

[CupofJoe]

Axolotls. So perfectly adapted they are nearly extinct in the wild. And there is an order of Nuns looking after them.

 

[Foxbat]

I have great admiration for Kuhli Loaches. This is mainly because when I used to keep tropical fish, I was cleaning out a tank and accidentally missed one of these critters. I did my usual of washing the gravel with alternating hot and cold water. It was after this that I realised to my horror that the loach was missing (they enjoy burrowing in sand or gravel).

I eventually found it in the trap under the sink none the worse for wear despite my inadvertently bombarding it with varying temperatures of water. The hardy little thing lived for another couple of years after that.
Great little creatures

 

[AlexH]

I didn't read the whole title. My bad.

Oh, sorry - I didn't mean it in that way. Just that I was impressed how indestructible tardigrades are!

ALL ANIMALS WELCOME. I sort of regretted the title after I'd posted, but that was the article that prompted my post.

 

[Foxbat]

Axolotls. So perfectly adapted they are nearly extinct in the wild. And there is an order of Nuns looking after them.

I was going to comment that an Axolotl was kind of a larval stage salamander but I did a bit of research and found that it’s much more than that. A new word to me: Neoteny. The Axolotl is a neotenic salamander. That’s my learning done for the day

Neoteny - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org