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Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Mi - Printable Version

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Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Mi - 727Sky - 01-04-2023

Some of this may strike a nerve with you



RE: Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Mi - Ninurta - 01-04-2023

I made a post here in another thread regarding Paul Erlich's pronouncements.

To that, I can only add that I'm not so sure that land use is increasing, but have no doubt it is changing locations for concentrations of it. Here, where I live now, just over my lifetime I've watched the land revert back to the wild. The hillside across the road from where I was raised was bald and being used as pasture for a herd of cattle when I was growing up. Now, the cattle are gone and the hillside has been retaken by a vast forest of cedars. Looking at the area in Goggle Earth, and using the timeline feature, I can actually watch the forest expanding and retaking the landscape over time. Agricultural land here is shrinking while the wild is returning.

I suppose because of the reforestation and expansion of wilderness, the animals are returning. There are many, many more bears here now than there were when I was growing up, to the point they are becoming a nuisance in some areas. Coyotes have returned, deer populations have increased, wild cats are making a comeback and increasing populations. Elk have been reintroduced, and are thriving.

Where I live now, 20 or 30 miles from where I was raised, the forest is returning as well, but is predominantly hardwoods. I was looking through some old pictures from 50 or so years ago taken in my current front yard, and the hillside across the road was clear then as well, but is now entirely covered by a hardwood forest. One of the two bears I ever saw when I was growing up was in a black berry patch just on the other side of the perimeter fence of my current yard. Now, the blackberry patch is gone, taken over by the forest - the trees take all the light, and the blackberry vines died out. Forest comes right up to my perimeter fence now, on all 4 sides. Matter of fact, I have 3 dead trees laying in my yard that storms blew down over the fence that I'm going to have to get rid of.

Long ago, in 18 years or so of living here, I saw that ONE bear on ONE occasion. The day I moved back in here, a momma bear and two cubs crossed the creek at my bridge, as if to say hi. - my very first day here. Deer regularly walk up my drive at about 7 or 7:30 am, moving into the woods for their daytime rest. A couple months ago, I saw one, a doe, 20 feet off of my deck, grazing like she had nary a care in the world. A week or two ago, I looked out the bedroom window and saw a 6 or 8 point buck grazing INSIDE my perimeter fence, in the yard between an outbuilding and the corner of my from porch. A colony of rabbits lives in my yard - much to my cat's delight.

In the next county west, where I grew up, the State has taken over two areas that my younger self roamed freely. One is an area on top of Clinch Mountain around an abandoned firewatch tower named "The Channels" now  - but we called it "Hai-to-pah" when I was younger. It's a State park that I think one has to have a permit to get onto now. Another park, at the falls of Cedar Creek where it runs into Clinch River is now a park with restrictions because they found some plant in that park that grows nowhere else on Earth.

There are more people here now than there were back then, which I gather is the case just about everywhere there are people. However, the character of the younger folks is different than our character was back then, with much less hunting going on, allowing for the animals to increase. These kids now are like city kids in that almost all of their grub comes from a grocery store. In the event of the coming collapse, when supply chains go down it's going to be dog eat dog around here as people scramble to get resources out of the woods, and the younger folks try to figure out how that's done. Many have lost the abilities we had back then, even though there were fewer resources then, too. We learned how to make do with what we could get, and shepherd our resources. If all these people don't figure that out when the collapse comes, it's gonna get rough here.

My point is, the wilderness is returning, at least here. 40 years ago, I ad a friend here named Dave who always said "in the end, the wild will win". He was killed about 30 years ago, and did not live to see just how right he was.

The wild IS winning, at least here.

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RE: Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Mi - Michigan Swamp Buck - 01-05-2023

You will never know what is lost, or not, unless you you go and look around once and awhile. 20 years ago, about two miles down the road, there was a colony of Karner blue butterflies that is endangered here in Michigan, but was once very common. It requires wild lupines and other plants in tall grass prairies and savanna lands. This colony was on an abandoned Christmas tree farm that had openings with prickly pears, wild flowers (mostly lupines), and prairie grasses like Indian grass and bluestems. I took a look at it a year or two ago and it was over grown, there were no lupines or Karner blues. There are some local restoration projects trying to encourage this rare butterfly, but the lupines in my rock garden never attracted them from the now extinct colony down the road.

I have found bugs and spiders that are rare local subspecies, quite exotic looking. The colorful variation of northern black widow we have in the swamp is beautiful and the trapdoor spider I found is likely entirely unknown, at least I could never find anything about those in Michigan. Then there is the metallic gold cockroach. Small insects and bugs are so ignored, you'd step on them and never notice, so you never notice them going extinct all around you.

RE: Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Mi - Ninurta - 01-05-2023

I saw an ant in North Carolina at a Bank of America in Greensboro, running around the shrubbery. Biggest ant I ever saw, it was around 2 or 2 1/2 inches long and looked like it was covered in red velvet. Never did figure out what kind of ant it was.

Prairie Moon Nursery specializes in wild prairie plant seed for restoration of prairie biomes. It's where I got my Midewiwin Sacred Tobacco seeds, but they've got all sorts of prairie plant seeds there.


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RE: Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists | 60 Mi - 727Sky - 01-05-2023

(01-05-2023, 05:44 AM)Ninurta Wrote: I saw an ant in North Carolina at a Bank of America in Greensboro, running around the shrubbery. Biggest ant I ever saw, it was around 2 or 2 1/2 inches long and looked like it was covered in red velvet. Never did figure out what kind of ant it was.

We call them horse or cow killers... Actual name is red velvet ant
Quote:Red Velvet Ant or “Cow Killer”
[Image: img344.jpg]
Red velvet ant or “cow killer”, Dasymutilla occidentalis (Linnaeus) (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae).Photo by Drees.
[b]Common Name:[/b] Red velvet ant or “cow killer”
[b]Scientific Name:[/b] [i]Dasymutilla occidentalis[/i] (Linnaeus)
[b]Order:[/b] Hymenoptera
[size=1][b]Description:[/b] These insects are wasps, not ants. Females are wingless and covered with dense hair, superficially resembling ants. The red velvet-ant is the largest velvet-ant species, reaching about 3/4 inch in length. They are black overall with patches of dense orange-red hair on the thorax and abdomen. Males are similar but have wings and can not sting.[/size]
Several other species of velvet ants are common in Texas, including the [size=1][b]gray velvet ant[/b] or [b]thistle down mutillid[/b], [i]Dasymutilla beutenmulleri[/i], and [i]D. fulvohirta[/i]. Most are solitary parasites of immature wasps (Vespidae and Sphecidae), solitary bees and some other insects such as beetles and flies. Winged males can be confused with other Hymenoptera. Adults of the tiphiid wasp, [i]Myzinum[/i] sp. (Hymenoptera: Tiphiidae) are black and yellow, 3/4 inch long . They can occur in large numbers, sometimes on flowers of landscape plants. Larvae are parasites of white grubs (Coleoptera: Scarabeidae).[/size]
[size=1][b]Life Cycle:[/b] Females seek the immature stages of ground-nesting bees, digging to the nesting chambers and eating a hole through the cocoon. She deposits and egg on the host larva, which soon hatches into a white legless grub. The immature velvet-ant eats the host larva, developing through several larval stages before forming a pupa.[/size]
[Image: img345.jpg]
A tiphiid, Myzinum sp. (Hymenoptera: Tiphiidae) male, parasitic on white grubs; (Coleoptera: Scarabiidae). Photo by Drees.
[size=1][b]Habitat, Food Source(s), Damage:[/b] Mouthparts are for chewing. Lone females can be found crawling on the ground, particularly in open sandy areas. Adults are most common during the warm summer months. Larvae are solitary, external parasites of developing bumble bees.[/size]
[size=1][b]Pest Status:[/b] The common name, “cow killer,” is thought to describe the painful sting these insects can inflict to man and animals, although it is doubtful that many cows are actually stung.[/size]