Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information or to customize your cookie preferences.

Accept Deny

GoGreenNation news

Historic Loss: Rising Seas Completely Eradicated a U.S. Species for the First Time

News Feed
Tuesday, July 16, 2024

The Key Largo tree cactus was initially found growing in the United States in 1992 at a single site. That population has since been lost to a combination of rising sea levels and increasingly intense storms. Credit: Photo courtesy of Susan KoltermanThe United States has witnessed the local extinction of the Key Largo tree cactus due to sea level rise, a first in the country. The cactus, already under pressure from salt water intrusion, hurricanes, and animal grazing, has seen its last remaining stems salvaged for cultivation to prevent total extinction.The United States has witnessed the complete loss of its sole population of the large Key Largo tree cactus, a development that researchers attribute to the first local extinction of a species in the country due to sea level rise.The Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) still grows on a few scattered islands in the Caribbean, including northern Cuba and parts of the Bahamas. In the United States, it was restricted to a single population in the Florida Keys, first discovered in 1992 and monitored intermittently since.  Saltwater intrusion from rising seas, soil depletion from hurricanes and high tides, and herbivory by mammals had put significant pressure on the population. By 2021, what had been a thriving stand of about 150 stems was reduced to six ailing fragments, which researchers salvaged for off-site cultivation to ensure their survival.“Unfortunately, the Key Largo tree cactus may be a bellwether for how other low-lying coastal plants will respond to climate change,” said Jennifer Possley, director of regional conservation at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and lead author on a study published Tuesday, July 9 that documents the population’s decline.Two closely related cacti negatively affected by environmental changeComparatively little is known about Florida’s rare cacti. Researchers initially stumbled upon the Key Largo tree cactus in an isolated mangrove forest, and for several years afterward, its identity remained uncertain. Most considered it to be a unique population of the similarly named Key tree cactus (Pilosocereus robinii), a federally endangered species that is present elsewhere in the Florida Keys.The two cacti have a similar appearance. The stems of both shoot up perpendicular to the ground and can grow to be more than 20 feet tall. Both have cream-colored flowers that smell like garlic and reflect moonlight, attracting bat pollinators, while their bright red and purple fruit catch the eye of birds and mammals.The Key Largo tree cactus can grow to impressive heights. Credit: Photo courtesy of Susan KoltermanBut there are key differences as well, which made Alan Franck, currently the herbarium collection manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History, suspect they were dealing with something unique on Key Largo.“The most striking difference is the tuft of long, woolly hairs at the base of the flowers and fruits,” Franck said. The hair is so thick, it can look as though the cactus is covered in drifts of snow. Spines of the Key Largo cactus are also twice as long as they are on the Key tree cactus.In 2019, Franck confirmed that the Key Largo population was the first and only known instance of Pilosocereus millspaughii in the U.S.By then, it was succumbing to some of the same environmental pressures that had plagued its relative, the Key tree cactus, over the last century. The latter was once common throughout the Florida Keys, but its numbers dipped dangerously low as more people moved to the area.Writing in 1917, botanist John Small noted that the Key tree cactus “was for a long time very abundant [on Key West]…In recent years, with the destruction of the hammock for securing firewood and for developing building sites, this interesting cactus has become scarce, until at present it is on the verge of extermination in its natural habitat.”The Key tree cactus was listed as federally endangered in 1984, but its numbers continued to wane. Between 1994 and 2007, it decreased by 84%.Researchers at Fairchild began monitoring all of the tree cactus populations annually in 2007, working in tandem with local land managers. One Fairchild-led study showed that salt levels were higher in soil beneath dead vs. living cacti in the years following a storm surge event in the Lower Keys, drawing a clear connection between mortality and increased salinity.Researchers also initiated a robust conservation collection for these species. Potted cacti are grown at a facility in Coral Gables, Florida, and seeds from both wild and cultivated plants are carefully banked for long-term conservation.Researchers study and rescue the remnants of a dwindling stockThe Key Largo tree cactus grew on a low limestone outcrop surrounded by mangroves near the shore. The site originally had a distinct layer of soil and organic matter that allowed the cactus and other plants to grow, but storm surge from hurricanes and exceptionally high tides eroded away this material until there wasn’t much left.Salt-tolerant plants that had been previously restricted to brackish soils beneath the mangroves slowly began creeping up the outcrop, an indication that salt levels were increasing.Given enough time, these changing conditions would likely have killed the cactus. But other incidents occurred that hastened the pace.Staff from Fairchild and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection removed all remaining green material in 2021 after it became clear the population was not going to survive. Credit: Photo courtesy of Jennifer Possley“We noticed the first big problem in 2015,” said study co-author James Lange, a research botanist at Fairchild. When he and his colleagues arrived to evaluate the plants that year, half of the cacti had died, apparently as a result of an alarming amount of herbivory. Cacti store reserves of water in their succulent stems, which allows them to survive for long periods of time without rain. This makes them enticing to animals when other sources of water are scarce.“In 2011, we started seeing saltwater flooding from king tides in the area,” Lange said, referring to particularly high ocean tides. “That limits the amount of freshwater available to small mammals and might be related to why the herbivores targeted this cactus, but we can’t say for sure. We’d never seen cactus herbivory like this anywhere in the Lower Keys, where flooding has tended to be less extensive.”The team set out cameras in hopes of finding the culprit, but whatever it was did not return, and there was no evidence of significant herbivory thereafter. Yet, when the team came back the following year, roughly another 50% of the population had died. In response, staff from Fairchild and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection took a few cuttings of what remained to grow in greenhouses.In 2017, category 5 Hurricane Irma swept across South Florida, creating a 5-foot storm surge. The highest point on Key Largo is only 15 feet above sea level, and large portions of the island remained flooded for days afterward. Once the storm had passed, the Fairchild team conducted triage with several cactus populations throughout the Keys, removing branches that had fallen on cacti and salvaging other ill-fated material. Conditions were so extreme that biologists had to put out kiddie pools of freshwater to keep local wildlife alive.Exacerbating the already degrading Key Largo tree cactus habitat, king tides in 2019 left large portions of the island, including the extremely low-lying outcrop, flooded for over three months.By 2021, there were only six Key Largo tree cactus stems left. As it was clear the population wasn’t going to survive, the team allowed the plants to flower and fruit for the remainder of the year, then salvaged all remaining green material and replanted it in greenhouses or controlled settings outdoors. At present, researchers know of no naturally growing Key Largo cacti in the United States.“We have tentative plans with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to replant some in the wild,” Possley said. Similar efforts are responsible, in large part, for the continued existence of the related Key tree cactus in Florida. “The amount of reintroduced material of this species is already more than the amount of wild material that’s left,” Possley said.But, she added, this may end up being more of a stopgap than a solution. Environments suitable for tree cacti are disappearing along with the plants they support. “It’s generally a fringe between the mangroves and upland hammocks called thorn scrub, and there just aren’t many places like that left where we can put reintroduced populations.”The decline of the Key Largo tree cactus and the necessity of its removal has given researchers an idea of what to expect in the future as species contend with a rapidly warming world. Instead of a smooth, predictable rise in sea or salt levels, the reality of climate change is messier and manifests itself in a complex series of related events that put additional pressure on species that are already stressed.“We are on the front lines of biodiversity loss,” said study co-author George Gann, executive director for the Institute for Regional Conservation. “Our research in South Florida over the past 25 years shows that more than one in four native plant species are critically threatened with regional extinction or are already extirpated due to habitat loss, over-collecting, invasive species, and other drivers of degradation. More than 50 are already gone, including four global extinctions.”Reference: “First U.S. vascular plant extirpation linked to sea level rise? Pilosocereus millspaughii (Cactaceae) in the Florida Keys, U.S.A.” by Jennifer Possley, James J. Lange, Alan R. Franck, George D. Gann, Trudy Wilson, Susan Kolterman, Janice Duquesnel and Joseph O’Brien, 9 July 2024, Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.DOI: 10.17348/jbrit.v18.i1.1350The study was funded by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. 

The United States has witnessed the local extinction of the Key Largo tree cactus due to sea level rise, a first in the country. The...

Key Largo Tree Cactus

The Key Largo tree cactus was initially found growing in the United States in 1992 at a single site. That population has since been lost to a combination of rising sea levels and increasingly intense storms. Credit: Photo courtesy of Susan Kolterman

The United States has witnessed the local extinction of the Key Largo tree cactus due to sea level rise, a first in the country. The cactus, already under pressure from salt water intrusion, hurricanes, and animal grazing, has seen its last remaining stems salvaged for cultivation to prevent total extinction.

The United States has witnessed the complete loss of its sole population of the large Key Largo tree cactus, a development that researchers attribute to the first local extinction of a species in the country due to sea level rise.

The Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) still grows on a few scattered islands in the Caribbean, including northern Cuba and parts of the Bahamas. In the United States, it was restricted to a single population in the Florida Keys, first discovered in 1992 and monitored intermittently since. 

Saltwater intrusion from rising seas, soil depletion from hurricanes and high tides, and herbivory by mammals had put significant pressure on the population. By 2021, what had been a thriving stand of about 150 stems was reduced to six ailing fragments, which researchers salvaged for off-site cultivation to ensure their survival.

“Unfortunately, the Key Largo tree cactus may be a bellwether for how other low-lying coastal plants will respond to climate change,” said Jennifer Possley, director of regional conservation at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and lead author on a study published Tuesday, July 9 that documents the population’s decline.

Two closely related cacti negatively affected by environmental change

Comparatively little is known about Florida’s rare cacti. Researchers initially stumbled upon the Key Largo tree cactus in an isolated mangrove forest, and for several years afterward, its identity remained uncertain. Most considered it to be a unique population of the similarly named Key tree cactus (Pilosocereus robinii), a federally endangered species that is present elsewhere in the Florida Keys.

The two cacti have a similar appearance. The stems of both shoot up perpendicular to the ground and can grow to be more than 20 feet tall. Both have cream-colored flowers that smell like garlic and reflect moonlight, attracting bat pollinators, while their bright red and purple fruit catch the eye of birds and mammals.

Tall Key Largo Tree Cactus

The Key Largo tree cactus can grow to impressive heights. Credit: Photo courtesy of Susan Kolterman

But there are key differences as well, which made Alan Franck, currently the herbarium collection manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History, suspect they were dealing with something unique on Key Largo.

“The most striking difference is the tuft of long, woolly hairs at the base of the flowers and fruits,” Franck said. The hair is so thick, it can look as though the cactus is covered in drifts of snow. Spines of the Key Largo cactus are also twice as long as they are on the Key tree cactus.

In 2019, Franck confirmed that the Key Largo population was the first and only known instance of Pilosocereus millspaughii in the U.S.

By then, it was succumbing to some of the same environmental pressures that had plagued its relative, the Key tree cactus, over the last century. The latter was once common throughout the Florida Keys, but its numbers dipped dangerously low as more people moved to the area.

Writing in 1917, botanist John Small noted that the Key tree cactus “was for a long time very abundant [on Key West]…In recent years, with the destruction of the hammock for securing firewood and for developing building sites, this interesting cactus has become scarce, until at present it is on the verge of extermination in its natural habitat.”

The Key tree cactus was listed as federally endangered in 1984, but its numbers continued to wane. Between 1994 and 2007, it decreased by 84%.

Researchers at Fairchild began monitoring all of the tree cactus populations annually in 2007, working in tandem with local land managers. One Fairchild-led study showed that salt levels were higher in soil beneath dead vs. living cacti in the years following a storm surge event in the Lower Keys, drawing a clear connection between mortality and increased salinity.

Researchers also initiated a robust conservation collection for these species. Potted cacti are grown at a facility in Coral Gables, Florida, and seeds from both wild and cultivated plants are carefully banked for long-term conservation.

Researchers study and rescue the remnants of a dwindling stock

The Key Largo tree cactus grew on a low limestone outcrop surrounded by mangroves near the shore. The site originally had a distinct layer of soil and organic matter that allowed the cactus and other plants to grow, but storm surge from hurricanes and exceptionally high tides eroded away this material until there wasn’t much left.

Salt-tolerant plants that had been previously restricted to brackish soils beneath the mangroves slowly began creeping up the outcrop, an indication that salt levels were increasing.

Given enough time, these changing conditions would likely have killed the cactus. But other incidents occurred that hastened the pace.

Staff From Fairchild and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Removing Green Material

Staff from Fairchild and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection removed all remaining green material in 2021 after it became clear the population was not going to survive. Credit: Photo courtesy of Jennifer Possley

“We noticed the first big problem in 2015,” said study co-author James Lange, a research botanist at Fairchild. When he and his colleagues arrived to evaluate the plants that year, half of the cacti had died, apparently as a result of an alarming amount of herbivory. Cacti store reserves of water in their succulent stems, which allows them to survive for long periods of time without rain. This makes them enticing to animals when other sources of water are scarce.

“In 2011, we started seeing saltwater flooding from king tides in the area,” Lange said, referring to particularly high ocean tides. “That limits the amount of freshwater available to small mammals and might be related to why the herbivores targeted this cactus, but we can’t say for sure. We’d never seen cactus herbivory like this anywhere in the Lower Keys, where flooding has tended to be less extensive.”

The team set out cameras in hopes of finding the culprit, but whatever it was did not return, and there was no evidence of significant herbivory thereafter. Yet, when the team came back the following year, roughly another 50% of the population had died. In response, staff from Fairchild and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection took a few cuttings of what remained to grow in greenhouses.

In 2017, category 5 Hurricane Irma swept across South Florida, creating a 5-foot storm surge. The highest point on Key Largo is only 15 feet above sea level, and large portions of the island remained flooded for days afterward. Once the storm had passed, the Fairchild team conducted triage with several cactus populations throughout the Keys, removing branches that had fallen on cacti and salvaging other ill-fated material. Conditions were so extreme that biologists had to put out kiddie pools of freshwater to keep local wildlife alive.

Exacerbating the already degrading Key Largo tree cactus habitat, king tides in 2019 left large portions of the island, including the extremely low-lying outcrop, flooded for over three months.

By 2021, there were only six Key Largo tree cactus stems left. As it was clear the population wasn’t going to survive, the team allowed the plants to flower and fruit for the remainder of the year, then salvaged all remaining green material and replanted it in greenhouses or controlled settings outdoors. At present, researchers know of no naturally growing Key Largo cacti in the United States.

“We have tentative plans with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to replant some in the wild,” Possley said. 

Similar efforts are responsible, in large part, for the continued existence of the related Key tree cactus in Florida. “The amount of reintroduced material of this species is already more than the amount of wild material that’s left,” Possley said.

But, she added, this may end up being more of a stopgap than a solution. Environments suitable for tree cacti are disappearing along with the plants they support. “It’s generally a fringe between the mangroves and upland hammocks called thorn scrub, and there just aren’t many places like that left where we can put reintroduced populations.”

The decline of the Key Largo tree cactus and the necessity of its removal has given researchers an idea of what to expect in the future as species contend with a rapidly warming world. Instead of a smooth, predictable rise in sea or salt levels, the reality of climate change is messier and manifests itself in a complex series of related events that put additional pressure on species that are already stressed.

“We are on the front lines of biodiversity loss,” said study co-author George Gann, executive director for the Institute for Regional Conservation. “Our research in South Florida over the past 25 years shows that more than one in four native plant species are critically threatened with regional extinction or are already extirpated due to habitat loss, over-collecting, invasive species, and other drivers of degradation. More than 50 are already gone, including four global extinctions.”

Reference: “First U.S. vascular plant extirpation linked to sea level rise? Pilosocereus millspaughii (Cactaceae) in the Florida Keys, U.S.A.” by Jennifer Possley, James J. Lange, Alan R. Franck, George D. Gann, Trudy Wilson, Susan Kolterman, Janice Duquesnel and Joseph O’Brien, 9 July 2024, Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.
DOI: 10.17348/jbrit.v18.i1.1350

The study was funded by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. 

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Related News

Giant prehistoric kangaroos preferred to ‘chill at home’ and didn’t like to go out much, scientists say

Fossil teeth show species of protemnodon that roamed Australia between 5m and 40,000 years ago lived and died near Queensland cavesGet our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcastDespite their immense size, species of prehistoric giant kangaroos from a site in Queensland were probably homebodies with a surprisingly small range compared to other kangaroos, according to new Australian research.Protemnodon, which roamed the Australian continent between 5m and 40,000 years ago and is now extinct, was significantly larger than its modern relatives. Some species weighed up to 170kg, making them more than twice as heavy as the largest red kangaroo. Continue reading...

Despite their immense size, species of prehistoric giant kangaroos from a site in Queensland were probably homebodies with a surprisingly small range compared to other kangaroos, according to new Australian research.Protemnodon, which roamed the Australian continent between 5m and 40,000 years ago and is now extinct, was significantly larger than its modern relatives. Some species weighed up to 170kg, making them more than twice as heavy as the largest red kangaroo.Given their size, researchers expected they might have an expansive territory, said University of Wollongong palaeo-ecologist Chris Laurikainen Gaete, the co-author of the study published in PLOS One.That’s because in most modern plant-eating mammals, including kangaroos and other macropods, larger body size correlated with geographic range, he said. A small marsupial such as the pademelon, for example, occupies an area smaller than a kilometre squared, whereas the red kangaroo – the largest of all kinds – in outback Australia can hop long distances, sometimes further than 20km.But analysis of fossil teeth found near Mt Etna, 30km north of Rockhampton in Queensland, revealed something quite different. These protemnodon kept to close quarters, living and dying near the caves where their remains were found.The Mt Etna fossil site in Queensland. Protemnodon’s restricted range increased its risk of extinction amid a changing climate, an expert says. Photograph: Scott HocknullCo-author Dr Scott Hocknull, a vertebrate palaeontologist and senior curator at the Queensland Museum, said the individuals from Mt Etna seemed to be “real homebodies” that stayed within “a tiny pocket” in and around the limestone caves.“These gigantic kangaroos were just chilling at home, eating the rainforest leaves, because there were heaps of them around. That also means that the environment was quite stable. It meant that over hundreds of thousands of years, these animals decided that staying put was a good bet.”The population at Mt Etna was “probably quite happy” for some time, Hocknull said. The rainforest probably provided a reliable source of food, while the caves offered protection from prehistoric predators, such as marsupial lions.But their restricted range was a “bad bet” in the end, Hocknull said, because it pre-disposed them to a risk of extinction when a changing climate and increasing aridity disrupted the rainforest environment about 280,000 years ago.Dr Scott Hocknull of the Queensland Museum with a protemnodon skull fossil. The prehistoric kangaroos were ‘real homebodies’, he saysDr Isaac Kerr, who specialises in kangaroo palaeontology at Flinders University and was not involved with the study, said protemnodon fossils – found mainly in the south and east of the country – indicated there were several species adapted to different environments.“Probably they were all over the whole continent, including New Guinea,” he said. A site in Tasmania had one of the latest surviving species, dated to 41,000 years ago.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Afternoon Update: Election 2025Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key election campaign stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionKerr said these megafauna kangaroos ranged in size but were generally stockier than their modern counterparts, with shorter feet.Protemnodon probably looked something like a wallaroo, he said, “squat and muscular but still quite large compared to a modern kangaroo”.Mt Etna is one of Australia’s richest fossil sites, containing evidence of ancient Pleistocene rainforests and records covering periods of past environmental change when rainforests gave way to open, arid environments.The researchers’ next step was to apply similar techniques to fossils of smaller kangaroos such as tree kangaroos, pademelons and rock wallabies from Mt Etna, which still have living descendants, to understand how they survived the environmental changes while protemnodon died out.Palaeo-ecologist Chris Laurikainen Gaete says that with most modern plant-eating mammals, larger body size correlates with larger geographic range – but not for the protemnodon found at Mt EtnaThe study compared the unique chemical signatures found in the local geology with those found in the fossilised teeth to establish the range of each animal, Gaete said.“Strontium is an element that varies in the environment, specifically in underlying bedrocks – so a limestone will have a significantly different strontium signature compared to something like volcanic rock or basalt,” he said. These unique signatures made their way into soil and plants, and were reflected in the fossilised teeth of herbivores that ate those plants.Laurikainen Gaete said the technique could be used to understand, on a site-by-site basis, why certain species of megafauna disappeared from particular places.Hocknull said: “It fundamentally shifts how palaeontologists and ecologists look at the fossil record.”

Extinction
Animals
Climate

Sunscreen, Clothing and Caves May Have Given Modern Humans an Edge Over Neanderthals When Earth's Magnetic Field Wandered

A new study suggests the extinction of Neanderthals nearly coincided with a shift in Earth's magnetic field that let more radiation reach the ground. Our species might have adapted more easily

Sunscreen, Clothing and Caves May Have Given Modern Humans an Edge Over Neanderthals When Earth’s Magnetic Field Wandered A new study suggests the extinction of Neanderthals nearly coincided with a shift in Earth’s magnetic field that let more radiation reach the ground. Our species might have adapted more easily A reconstruction of a Neanderthal man in the Natural History Museum, Vienna. A new study suggests Neanderthals could not adapt to a period of increased radiation as well as early modern humans did. Jakub Hałun via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0 One of the most enduring questions in anthropology is why Neanderthals, our closest extinct human relatives, completely disappeared around 40,000 years ago. Possible theories include climate change, resource competition and the dilution of Neanderthals’ genes through interbreeding with modern humans’ ancestors. Now, new research suggests early Homo sapiens may have had an edge on their cousins thanks to their use of sun protection—namely, natural sunscreen, tailored clothes and caves—during a period of unusually strong solar and cosmic radiation. The research is detailed in a study published last week in the journal Science Advances. Earth’s moving interior generates our planet’s magnetic field, an invisible shield that helps protect us and our atmosphere from harmful energy coming from space. This magnetic field has a north and south orientation, which currently roughly aligns with Earth’s North and South poles. Those are the sites where the field is the strongest, which is why auroras are usually visible at more extreme latitudes. Sometimes, however, the magnetic field’s poles wander from the planet’s geographic poles in what scientists call geomagnetic excursions, according to a statement. Occasionally, the magnetic field’s north and south poles swap completely—a natural phenomenon that has taken place about 180 times in Earth’s history. The most recent geomagnetic excursion, called the Laschamps excursion, occurred around 41,000 years ago—just before Neanderthals went extinct. To investigate this event for the new study, an international team of researchers reconstructed Earth’s upper atmosphere and nearby space during the Laschamps excursion using a 3D computer model. By combining this with models of the space plasma around Earth and our planet’s auroras, the team suggests that during the Laschamps excursion, Earth’s magnetic field overall was only 10 percent as strong as its current level. This allowed the north magnetic pole to wander over Europe, making aurora visible across the continent. It also let more cosmic radiation reach the ground. A diagram of the Laschamps excursion. At this time, auroras—depicted here by gradients of green and yellow—could be seen from most of the globe. Agnit Mukhopadhyay, University of Michigan “During the Laschamps event, the magnetic poles shifted away from true north,” lead author Agnit Mukhopadhyay, a climate and space scientist at the University of Michigan, tells BBC Science Focus’ Hatty Willmoth. “This movement, coupled with a notable weakening of the magnetic field, resulted in an expanded auroral zone and increased atmospheric penetration by energetic particles, such as solar energetic particles and cosmic radiation.” Both of those particles represent ionizing radiation, which can be harmful to human health. Interestingly, the Laschamps excursion coincided with notable developments for our ancestors and early relatives. According to the statement, some evidence suggests Homo sapiens started producing custom clothing, spending more time in caves and increasing their use of a mineral called ochre at that time. “There have been some experimental tests that show it [ochre] has sunscreen-like properties. It’s a pretty effective sunscreen, and there are also ethnographic populations that have used it primarily for that purpose,” Raven Garvey, a co-author of the study and an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, says in the statement. “So, while archaeologists cannot directly observe the behaviors of peoples who lived over 40,000 years ago, we can hypothesize that the increased use of ochre may have been, in part, for its sun-protective properties,” Garvey adds to BBC Science Focus. Environmental changes caused by the weaker magnetic field “may have driven adaptive behaviors in human populations, such as the increased use of protective clothing and ochre for UV shielding,” as Mukhopadhyay tells New Scientist’s James Woodford. But as early modern humans made these lifestyle changes, Neanderthals ultimately disappeared. The team speculates these differences may have contributed to Homo sapiens outliving Neanderthals, who don’t seem to be associated with the same developments. Not everyone agrees, however. “There’s definitely a rough overlap in terms of timing between the incursion of ancient modern humans into Europe and the Laschamps event,” says Amy Mosig Way, an archaeologist from the Australian Museum who was not involved in the study, to New Scientist. “But it’s probably a stretch to say modern humans had better sun protection in the form of tailored clothing than Neanderthals, and that this contributed to their ability to travel farther than Neanderthals and their subsequent dominance of Eurasia.” More broadly, the researchers suggest that our ancestors’ survival of a severely weakened magnetic sphere could hold implications for how we continue our search for extraterrestrial beings. “Many people say that a planet cannot sustain life without a strong magnetic field,” Mukhopadhyay says in the statement. “Looking at prehistoric Earth, and especially at events like this, helps us study exoplanetary physics from a very different vantage point. Life did exist back then. But it was a little bit different than it is today.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Extinction
Climate
Health

Environmentalists sue Trump administration to save ‘unique amphibian’ at Crater Lake

Warming waters, an invasive fish and federal budget cuts are threatening the cute little creature.

A “cute little newt” has found itself in the middle of a fight between a leading environmental organization and the Trump administration.The Center for Biological Diversity on Thursday announced its intention to file a lawsuit over the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s failure to protect the Crater Lake newt, also known as the Mazama newt, which the environmental organization said is “critically imperiled.”In October, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was considering listing the newt as a threatened or endangered species, following a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity. The federal agency said the listing would be fully considered in a 12-month evaluation, but since then the agency has faced a series of firings and budget cuts as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal government. Those cuts will make it harder to protect the newt, which is currently threatened by invasive crayfish that prey on the little amphibian, the Center for Biological Diversity said.“Crater Lake newts are unique little amphibians on the brink of extinction and urgent action is needed for them to have any chance of survival,” Chelsea Stewart-Fusek, an endangered species attorney with the organization, said in a news release. “We’re at the point where newts may need to be bred in captivity until the explosion of crayfish can be addressed. The longer the government waits, the harder it’ll be for these irreplaceable amphibians to recover.”If listed as an endangered species, the newt may benefit from federal funds that could help with crayfish removal and a captive breeding program, Stewart-Frisk said. The demise of the Crater Lake newt, which is a subspecies of the rough-skinned newt, has accelerated in the last 15 years as warming temperatures favor its predator, the signal crayfish, which was introduced to the park in the late 1800s as a way to attract visitors and gain federal protection as a national park – a plan that ultimately worked. Crayfish now occupy more than 95% of the lake’s shoreline, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, and scientists project they could occupy 100% in less than two years. That could threaten not only the newts, but the crystal blue clarity of Crater Lake itself, as the crayfish also prey on native plankton-consuming invertebrates, increasing the growth of algae in the lake, the organization said. “Amphibians act as canaries in the coal mine, and right now more than 40% of the world’s amphibians are at risk of extinction,” Stewart-Fusek said. “This is a grave warning that should be taken seriously. What harms wildlife and their habitat endangers us, too.”--Jamie Hale covers travel and the outdoors and co-hosts the Peak Northwest podcast. Reach him at 503-294-4077, jhale@oregonian.com or @HaleJamesB.Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.

Extinction
Government
Forests

Scientists say they 'de-extincted' dire wolves. Experts at La Brea Tar Pits are skeptical

Colossal Biosciences, the company that made headlines years back for claims they wanted to revive the woolly mammoth, say they successfully "de-extincted" the dire wolf. Local experts are not so sure.

When news that scientists in Texas had succesfully reintroduced the long-extinct dire wolf to the modern world, more people than just “Game of Thrones” fans took notice.Researchers at the Natural History Museum’s La Brea Tar Pits, where a wall is decorated with hundreds of dire wolf skulls, had questions.Namely, are they really dire wolves? Turns out, it depends on how you define it.“What they have created is basically a genetically engineered gray wolf that has been given genetic traits so they can express morphological or physical traits that more resemble dire wolves,” said Kayce Bell, a terrestrial mammal curator at the Natural History Museum. “The technology and the tools that they are developing with this work are incredible and very powerful, but the terms that are being used to discuss it, I think, are misleading.”Earlier this week, biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences in Dallas announced they had “de-extincted” the dire wolf, sharing the news of the births of three healthy pups. Over 18 months, experts there extracted and sequenced ancient DNA from two dire wolf fossils — a 13,000-year-old tooth from Sheridan Pit, Ohio, and a 72,000-year-old inner ear bone from American Falls, Idaho. With that ancient DNA, scientists identified gene variants specific to dire wolves and then performed multiplex gene editing with a genome from the gray wolf, dire wolves’ closest living relatives. They used domestic dogs as surrogate mothers to birth the three pups. This undated photo provided by Colossal Biosciences shows two pups that were genetically engineered with similarities to the extinct dire wolf. (Colossal Biosciences via Associated Press) Colossal’s chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, said she understands the scientific skepticism that came with the announcement. “I get it,” she said. “It’s frustrating when you work in paleontology and you feel like it’s not effective science communication, and I wish I’d done a bit better.”Though Southern California has a jackpot of dire wolf fossils relative to other sites, extracting DNA from the local samples is difficult. Shapiro said she’s been trying and unable to collect DNA from local samples for 20 years. Among the reasons it’s challenging to collect, experts say, is that L.A.’s urban landscape bakes in the sun, heating up the asphalt, which could degrade ancient DNA buried underneath.La Brea Tar Pits has the highest concentration of dire wolf fossils in the world, with remains from over 4,000 dire wolves found at the site. They lived in the region for at least 50,000 years, disappearing about 13,000 years ago.“There’s no other site on Earth that even comes close to that,” said Emily Lindsey, the associate curator and excavation site director at La Brea Tar Pits.Dire wolves, native to Southern California but not limited to the region, were highly adaptable and had a very wide range of environmental tolerances before the species went extinct about 10,000 years ago, Lindsey said. The three pups — Romulus and Remus, who were born in October, and Khaleesi, born in January — now live on an ecological preserve at an undisclosed location that spans over 2,000 acres and hosts 10 full-time staff members who care for and observe them. The preserve is certified by the American Humane Society and registered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Depending on how you look at it, that could be dire wolf territory now.In 2016, the International Union for Conservation of Nature published a report that focused on de-extinction and defined it as “bringing back a proxy of an extinct species that resembles it in some way, phenotypically, physiologically, ecologically,” Shapiro said.But in the end, she said she’s not really hung up on what the animals are called beyond their names, inspired by founders of Rome and the “Game of Thrones” show.“Call it a de-extinct dire wolf that abides by the definition that the scientific community agreed on 10 years ago. Call it Colossal’s dire wolf. Call it a gray wolf with 20 edits that looks and acts like a dire wolf and is a functional replacement for a dire wolf,” Shapiro said.Part of Colossal’s announcement this week included news that they had also successfully created four clones of the endangered red wolf using a new noninvasive cloning technology. Both Lindsey and Bell said they appreciated Colossal’s work on conserving endangered species, but think that focusing on conservation is a more productive use of resources. “There are potentially useful applications of some of these technologies, particularly for preventing highly endangered species from going extinct. I think that would be a far more efficient application of these technologies than trying to bring something resembling an extinct species back to life,” Lindsey said. “I’d hate to have to be trying to de-extinct wolves once they go extinct, right?”Colossal’s Chief Executive Ben Lamm said the company wants to pair their “de-extinction events” with work they’re doing to protect critically endangered species. The company’s other de-extinction hopes include reviving the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. To Lamm and Shapiro, de-extinction and conservation can work in tandem.“Conservation and de-extinction are not at odds with each other. The de-extinction toolkit should be part of the increasing number of ways that we have at our fingertips to be able to help endangered species survive,” Shapiro said.Lamm, who held up drawings of dodos and other extinct animals children had sent to the Colossal team during a Zoom interview with The Times, said he thinks the milestone could also inspire more people to pursue careers in related fields.“The world needs a little hope right now, and I think the world needs more science. Hopefully, we’re providing a little bit of both,” he said.And yes, of course “Jurassic Park” quotes and references are tossed Lamm and Shapiro’s way with stunning frequency.“People actually say to us, ‘Don’t you know what happened in Jurassic Park?,’ equating it to, like, Chernobyl,” Lamm said. “ ‘Didn’t you see what happened there?’ Not, ‘Didn’t you watch the movie and learn anything about human hubris from the movie?’ They don’t say that.”Shapiro added: “People are yelling at us that these aren’t real dire wolves. But no one has ever questioned whether the dinosaurs in ‘Jurassic Park’ are real dinosaurs.”While the debate is still open, Lindsey said she invites anyone curious about the creatures to visit La Brea Tar Pits to see some of the “real dire wolves” that they have excavated at the site. “It’s a really cool opportunity — one that you don’t get in almost any other city in the world — to come and really see the incredible diversity of large animals that lived here until very recently,” Lindsey said.

Extinction
Science
Animals

You Might Think of Shrimp as Bugs of the Sea. But a Remarkable Discovery Shows the Opposite: Bugs Are Actually Shrimp of the Land

A recent study suggests that insects branched out from crustaceans on the tree of life

You Might Think of Shrimp as Bugs of the Sea. But a Remarkable Discovery Shows the Opposite: Bugs Are Actually Shrimp of the Land A recent study suggests that insects branched out from crustaceans on the tree of life Riley Black - Science Correspondent April 9, 2025 8:00 a.m. A species of remipede known from the Caicos Islands. The photograph was taken by a member of a multinational team looking for rare species. Remipedes are crustaceans that are close relatives to insects. Jørgen Olesen / Natural History Museum of Denmark, Brett Gonzalez, Karen Osborn, GGI Shrimp look an awful lot like bugs. The exoskeletons, jointed legs and compound eyes of both groups of living things give them more than a passing resemblance to each other, so no wonder some people call shrimp-like crawfish “mudbugs,” and a tattoo reading “shrimps is bugs” became a viral meme for underscoring the resemblance. But the tattoo got the reality backwards. Shrimp are not bugs. Bugs—or, more properly, insects—are technically a form of crustacean. Biologists of many different subdisciplines categorize life in a field called systematics. Living things of all sorts, both extant and extinct, are constantly being compared and evaluated to build what we so commonly think of as the tree of life. The addition of new species and novel analyses are constantly reshaping that evolutionary tree, and sometimes the category changes shift more than just a few twigs but entire evolutionary branches. Birds are now known to be dinosaurs, for example, whales are technically hoofed mammals called artiodactyls, and, thanks to a 2023 study in Molecular Biology and Evolution, insects have been shifted into the same group as shrimp and crabs called pancrustacea. The realization that bugs were close relatives of crustaceans took almost a century of curiosity to uncover. Paleontologist Joanna Wolfe of Harvard University, one of the authors of the 2023 study, notes that researchers noticed some insects and crustaceans had the same structures in their eyes and nervous systems. The resemblance could have been the result of convergent evolution, when two groups independently evolve in the same way, and so the idea that insects are modified crustaceans didn’t catch. But the hypothesis didn’t fully go away, either. In 2013, Wolfe and colleagues found that insects were the sister group, or next closest evolutionary relatives, to crustaceans called remipedes—which live in undersea caves and are the only venomous crustaceans. Remipedes were supposed to be oddballs that were shaped in strange ways due to their lives in caves. Now they were coming out as the closest relatives to the flies, mantises, bees and other insects we see around us on land. “At that time, I was shocked and thought there was something wrong with our results,” Wolfe recalls, only to have additional evidence make the connection between insects and crustaceans stronger. The 2023 analysis, based on genetic data, found insects next to remipedes in the middle of the various crustacean subgroups. Specifically, insects fit within a wide group of crustaceans called allotriocarida that not only includes remipedes, but also other unusual groups such as shrimp-like branchiopods and worm-like cephalopods sometimes called “horseshoe shrimp.” To put it another way, insects are to crustaceans as bats are to mammals—a subset that belongs to a broader group despite seeming so different from their closest relatives. Systematic shifts do far more than simply rearrange who’s related to whom. “Systematics allow us to make sense of the complexity of life,” says Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History paleontologist Advait Jukar. “When we recategorize species into new groups we can look at patterns of how that group might be diversifying and the various environmental and ecological factors.” Insects, like those above, fit right in the middle of the broader crustacean family tree. Richard Ross, The Image Bank via Getty Images When birds were recognized as dinosaurs, the change did more than reshuffle their place on the evolutionary tree. “The change showed us how characteristics that we typically associate with birds today, such as feathers, hollow bones and air sacs, were widely found within Dinosauria,” Jukar says. Paleontologists began finding more feathered dinosaurs and dinosaurs with traits previously associated with birds, such as complex systems of air sacs as part of their respiratory systems, once the connection was made. The newly understood relationship between birds and other dinosaurs has allowed experts to better understand why only birds survived the mass extinction of 66 million years ago. Comparisons between birds and bird-like dinosaurs revealed that adaptations for eating seeds and nuts that some birds developed during the Cretaceous allowed them to survive while bird-like raptors perished. The recognition that whales are hoofed mammals occurred around the same time as birds were found to be dinosaurs. The shift had a deep effect on how paleontologists carried out their research as well as the identity of the blubbery mammals. Prior to the 1990s, the earliest whales were thought to have evolved from carnivorous mammals called mesonychids. The beasts, sometimes called “wolves with hooves” because they looked like canids with hoof-like toes, were some of Earth’s most prominent carnivores around 55 million years ago, the time when amphibious whales such as Pakicetus began swimming in the shallows. But genetic evidence kept grouping whales close to hippos and other mammals with hoofed toes, called artiodactyls. Experts debated the connection, but by 2001 paleontologists uncovered early whale ankle bones that possessed traits only seen among artiodactyls. The recognition shifted where whales fit in the mammalian evolutionary tree and recalibrated what sort of ancestral creatures paleontologists should be looking for, yielding the 2007 discovery that whales most likely evolved from small, deer-like creatures in ancient India. Without the recognition that whales are artiodactyls, the relevance of those ancient, hoofed creatures to the origin of whales would have been entirely missed and paleontologists would still be wondering where orcas and minke whales came from. In the case of the bugs, Wolfe notes, the recognition that insects shared a close common ancestor with remipedes helps narrow down where and how insects originated. “For me, the exciting part for insects is the recognition that they do not come from a terrestrial ancestor,” Wolfe says. Until recently, the ancestors of insects were thought to be more millipede-like and evolved once invertebrates began to live on land. Now, Wolfe notes, the closest relatives of insects are wiggly crustaceans that live in marine caves. The connection doesn’t mean that remipedes embody the exact ancestral form of the first insects, but rather that their close relationship will cause experts to rethink where insects came from and how they evolved. The effort will require tracing the ancestry of remipedes and other crustaceans, as well as searching for insects in the fossil record—both from new fossil sites and perhaps miscategorized fossils already in collections. “There’s a complicated history and still missing pieces,” she notes, but now biologists have a better sense of what to search for. Bugs are crustaceans, and now experts can begin to wonder how that came to be. Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

Extinction
Science

Suggested Viewing

Anxious

Noah is so worried about climate change he can't sleep at night. His wife Hali is confident it's all going to be just fine. Should they even have kids?! Should they sell their CA house and move to a colder Alaska? How does one plan for the end of the world...?

Culture
Crisis
Extinction

Eryngium Proteiflorum

Exists the ideal space-time with appropriate conditions for each organism fulfills its life cycle. Exists places to be fully habitats: The Eryngium Proteiflorum is an endangered endemic flower of the Mexican Transverse Volcanic Axis. Every being has its own space and time and the reflection on the human right to alter it takes relevance in a historical moment where protecting biodiversity can be a deadly battle, where the lives of those who fight for prevention are being taken, every human has its own metaphorical Eryngium. It is not just about a flower, it is about the idea that we can posses anything we want without considering its destruction. This film honors those who have no voice and whose future is plunging into extinction.

Culture
Plants
Extinction

Giants of Big Sur: California Condor Stories Part 2: Leading the Way with Non-Lead

Through experiencing the work of Ventana Wildlife Society, Ross comes to understand the greatest threat to condors is lead ammunition. Ross meets Mike Stake, Non-Lead Ammunition Program Manager, who takes him to meet with a rancher in a key condor area to better understand these complex issues. Through responsible gun use, California condor recovery is achievable. We thank hunters and ranchers who switched to using non-lead ammunition.

Conservation
Extinction
Pollution

Ser Manguezal

Ser Manguezal, created by Eliseu Cavalcante, was inspired by Josué de Castro's book "Of Men and Crabs" from 1967. De Castro was a Brazilian geographer, physician, writer and activist against world hunger. In his book, Castro envisions men as crabs, learning to walk in the mangroves. This relationship between them seems to unify and blend all together making the human being part of that specific biome. This film is part of an ongoing project that examines those who depend on the mangrove ecosystem to survive, and the delicate relationship between humans and this particular ecosystem. It seeks to recognize the hard-working crab hunters of the mangroves and make their work more visible, and to bring awareness about the importance of mangroves to the environment. Worldwide, 3,400 square kilometers (1,300 square miles) of mangrove forests were lost between 2000 and 2016, or about 2% of the global mangrove area (NASA). About 62% of the losses were due to direct human causes such as agriculture and aquaculture. Mangrove degradation is greater than the average for tropical and subtropical forest loss.

Water
Conservation
Plants

Wildlife in Our Backyard

It is often said that we must tolerate wildlife, but what happens if we learn to thrive with them instead? What can this mean for the wildlife? What can it mean for the people of Florida? And what can it mean for the endangered Florida panther? Wildlife in Our Backyard shows us some of the problems facing the wildlife as well as the hope of a brighter future as we learn to share the landscape with them.

Animals
Land Use
Extinction

Join us to forge
a sustainable future

Our team is always growing.
Become a partner, volunteer, sponsor, or intern today.
Let us know how you would like to get involved!

CONTACT US

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Subscribers receive a free day pass for streaming Cinema Verde.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.