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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

Have Dire Wolves, Which Went Extinct More Than 10,000 Years Ago, Really Been Brought Back to Life?

Pioneers in the science of "de-extinction," an American company has announced the births of three pups whose genes resemble those of a species that hasn't roamed Earth for millennia

Have Dire Wolves, Which Went Extinct More Than 10,000 Years Ago, Really Been Brought Back to Life? Pioneers in the science of “de-extinction,” an American company has announced the births of three pups whose genes resemble those of a species that hasn’t roamed Earth for millennia Romulus and Remus, pups that the company Colossal Biosciences says are the first dire wolves to roam the planet in several thousand years, are seen at one month old. Colossal Biosciences A researcher holds two snow-white wolf pups as they howl at the top of their adorable little lungs. Their names are Romulus and Remus—in honor of the siblings associated with the mythical founding of ancient Rome—but they’re not any kind of wolf you’ve ever seen. They’re dire wolves… ish. Made popular as the giant pets owned by the Stark children in Game of Thrones, the canine species went extinct more than 10,000 years ago. On Monday, the biotechnology startup Colossal Biosciences—known as the “de-extinction” company—announced the birth of Romulus, Remus and a third dire wolf, a female named Khaleesi (in reference to the Game of Thrones character Daenerys Targaryen). According to the firm’s statement, the dire wolf has just become “the world’s first successfully de-extincted animal.” Given the pups’ genetic similarity to gray wolves, however, some scientists are challenging this claim. Dire wolves roamed the Earth during the Pleistocene, between around 11,700 and 2.6 million years ago. Paleontologists have consistently unearthed their remains in North and South America, and they’re the most common mammal to appear in the La Brea Tar Pits of California. Compared to the modern gray wolf, the species’ closest living relative, dire wolves were larger and had bigger teeth. Since it formed in 2021, Colossal Biosciences has been known for its highly publicized efforts to “resurrect” extinct woolly mammoths, dodos and Tasmanian tigers. But their work with dire wolves had not previously been announced, writes CNN’s Katie Hunt. The First Dire Wolf Howl in Over 10,000 Years The company plans to “bring back” these species by editing the genomes of their living relatives, creating a creature that closely approximates their target. To birth Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, researchers at Colossal extracted, sequenced and analyzed the dire wolf genome from a 13,000-year-old dire wolf tooth and a 72,000-year-old dire wolf skull. “Getting the genome was really hard, they didn’t live in cold climates, so the DNA wasn’t as well preserved,” Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer and a researcher at the University of California at Santa Cruz, tells Bloomberg’s Josh Saul. They then compared it to the genome of a gray wolf, among other living canids. The comparison revealed 20 differences in 14 genes linked to distinct dire wolf traits, including a larger size, wider head, bigger teeth and white fur. The researchers edited gray wolf genes to match those characteristics, then inserted them into the egg cells of a domesticated dog, with the cells’ own DNA removed. The eggs developed into embryos, which were then transplanted into the wombs of large hound mixes, resulting in the births of Romulus and Remus in October, and Khaleesi in January, all via cesarean section. Another female dire wolf was born in January, but she died ten days later from an intestinal infection that Colossal says was not related to the genetic edits. Now, the modern-day dire wolves reside in a fenced-in ecological preserve certified by the American Humane Society in an undisclosed area of the northern United States. They are essentially “living the Ritz Carlton lifestyle of a wolf,” Shapiro tells the New York Times’ Carl Zimmer. Thanks to cameras and drones, “they can’t get a splinter without us knowing about it.” Dire wolf DNA is 99.5 percent identical to that of gray wolves, Shapiro tells New Scientist’s Michael Le Page. But that 0.5 percent difference could consist of millions of base pairs. This raises the question of whether the pups are really dire wolves or just genetically modified gray wolves. Scientists not connected to the initiative point out that dire wolves might have countless other genetic differences that were not accounted for in the 20 changes made by Colossal’s team. “We have a mostly gray wolf that looks like a dire wolf,” Julie Meachen, a vertebrate paleontologist from Des Moines University who was not involved in the project, says to ABC News. Meachen co-authored a paper on the evolution of dire wolves along with Shapiro in 2021, which found that the species is genetically distinct from gray wolves, having diverged from the wolf lineage nearly six million years ago. As for these new creatures, Meachen adds, “I don’t think they are actually dire wolves.” Shapiro tells Wired’s Emily Mullin and Matt Reynolds that “if we can look at this animal and see what it’s doing, and it looks like a dire wolf and acts like a dire wolf, I’m going to call it a dire wolf. And my colleagues who are taxonomists will disagree with me.” Romulus and Remus, pictured at three months old, can run around outside in their enclosure at an undisclosed location. Colossal Biosciences Other scientists point out that the pups might not know how to act like dire wolves. Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi are unlikely to exhibit behaviors typical of wild dire wolves due to being raised in captivity without a pack structure, says Adam Boyko, a geneticist at Cornell University who was not involved in the project, to the New York Times. He adds that since the dire wolves are not consuming the ancient dire wolf diet, they are also not developing their ancestors’ intestinal microbes. Nevertheless, Colossal CEO Ben Lam maintains that “if we are successful in de-extinction, we’re building technologies that can help human health care and conservation,” as he tells Bloomberg. In this spirit, Colossal also birthed two litters of cloned red wolves—the most endangered wolf species in the world. Just last month, the company announced the birth of “woolly mice”, which they say is a critical step in the de-extinction of woolly mammoths. In October last year, they also claimed to have built the most complete ancient genome to date, belonging to the Tasmanian tiger. But some have raised questions about what the conservation purpose of these dire wolves will be, or how “de-extinct” species could be released into the wild ecosystems of today. “In states like Montana, we are currently having trouble keeping a healthy population of gray wolves on the land in the face of amped up political opposition,” Christopher Preston, an environmental philosopher at the University of Montana, tells CNN. “It is hard to imagine dire wolves ever being released and taking up an ecological role. So, I think it is important to ask what role the new animals will serve.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Extinction
Science
Climate

Earless dragons were presumed extinct in Australia – now Daisy and Kip have sniffed out 13 of them

Zoos Victoria wildlife detection dogs uncovered the ‘bloody gorgeous’ reptiles in return for treats and cuddles Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereWildlife detection dogs successfully sniffed out 13 critically endangered earless dragons in previously unknown burrows in Melbourne’s west, after a training program launched by Zoos Victoria in 2023.The Victorian grassland earless dragon – Australia’s most imperilled reptile – had not been seen for 50 years and was thought extinct before its remarkable rediscovery on privately owned grassland in 2023.Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...

Wildlife detection dogs successfully sniffed out 13 critically endangered earless dragons in previously unknown burrows in Melbourne’s west, after a training program launched by Zoos Victoria in 2023.The Victorian grassland earless dragon – Australia’s most imperilled reptile – had not been seen for 50 years and was thought extinct before its remarkable rediscovery on privately owned grassland in 2023.Register: it’s quick and easyIt’s still free to read – this is not a paywallWe’re committed to keeping our quality reporting open. By registering and providing us with insight into your preferences, you’re helping us to engage with you more deeply, and that allows us to keep our journalism free for all.Have a subscription? Made a contribution? Already registered?Sign InGiven this “second chance” at survival, Garry Peterson, the zoo’s general manager of threatened species, said the organisation launched intensive training and search efforts the same year.“We’re really lucky to have a second opportunity with this species that was presumed extinct,” Peterson said.But it wasn’t going to be easy to find them. It’s thought there are probably fewer than 200 dragons left in the wild and the short, nuggetty and extremely rare dragons often hid inside wolf spider burrows or under rocks, making them challenging to find using traditional survey techniques.That’s where the zoo’s dogs came in.After a year of training, Daisy, a 6-year-old lagotto romagnolo and Kip, an 8-year-old kelpie cross, had sniffed out a total of 13 of the wild dragons by March this year, in return for treats, cuddles, ball games and praise.Daisy mostly works with wildlife detection dog officer Dr Nick Rutter, who said it was a “career highlight” when she finally found a dragon on her own in May 2024, making him feel “an overwhelming cascade of joy”.The palm-sized reptiles were “bloody gorgeous”, he said, with intricate patterns down their backs and striking colours during the breeding season.Daisy and Kip were chosen for their safe behaviour around small animals, and experience surveying for threatened species, like Baw Baw frogs and freshwater turtles.Each undertook about 80 days of scent-based training and survey work, initially sniffing out a small number of captive animals and graduating to opportunistic lessons in the field when biologists came across a wild dragon.When assessed, the dog-handler teams detected earless dragons with speed and accuracy, according to results published on the National Environmental Science Program’s Resilient Landscapes hub.Wildlife detection dog officer Dr Nick Rutter said it was a ‘career highlight’ when Daisy found her first earless dragon in May 2024. Photograph: Zoos VictoriaEmma Bennett, who has researched the effectiveness of detection dogs in searching for rare species, said dogs provided a scent-based search method that was complimentary to traditional surveys using visual cues.“If something is hidden, or camouflaged, in a burrow, and just difficult to see, it might be easy to smell,” she said.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Clear Air AustraliaAdam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisisPrivacy 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 promotionDetection dogs were being successfully used in Australia, as well as globally, for finding threatened species, searching for invasive viruses and pathogens, and conducting bird and bat surveys at wind farms.Bennett, who has worked with detection dogs for 20 years and was not involved with the zoo project, said success relied on a strong partnership between human and hound.“From the dog’s perspective, the role of the human is to carry the ball around for when they do find something, and then to throw it,” Bennett said.Zoos Victoria also trained two other dogs, Sugar and Moss, to search for dragon scats – droppings roughly the size of corn kernels. While the dogs were effective at finding them, they were limited by how quickly scats were scavenged by ants and other invertebrates in the wild.It’s thought there are probably fewer than 200 Victorian grassland earless dragons left in the wild. Photograph: Zoos VictoriaHistorical records show the Victorian grassland earless dragon was once recorded in St Kilda, Moonee Ponds and Sunbury, habitat that disappeared as housing and farmland expanded. Approximately 0.5% of suitable grassland habitat remains.Dr Jane Melville, senior curator of terrestrial vertebrates at Museums Victoria Research Institute – who named the Victorian grassland earless dragon as a distinct species in 2019 – said its rediscovery was a reminder that animals could still persist, even in places where they hadn’t been seen in decades.“They’ve shown amazing resilience,” she said. “This little dragon has managed to hold on under really difficult circumstances.”

Extinction
Climate
Crisis

Suggested Viewing

The Windshield Effect

As a child, Julian and his mother, Sylvie, could spend hours out in nature admiring the soundtrack of the plentiful insects. One day, a grown Julian is out on a run in those same woods and when he takes off his ear buds, realizes he cannot hear anything at all. A trip to the audiologist assures him there is nothing wrong with his ears, but he is still left shaken. Back in the forest, he comes to the realization that the insects themselves have gone silent in a mass die off. Also known as the "Windshield Phenomenon" that documents how bugs no longer splatter on windshields as we drive as insect populations are down more than 45% over the last 4 decades.

Forests
Extinction
Nature

Giants of Big Sur: California Condor Stories Part 1: Return to the Wild

Go behind the scenes with Wilderness Documentarian Ross Thomas as he learns the amazing and inspiring stories of the critically endangered California condor. Ross meets the Ventana Wildlife Society experts who have been working since 1997 to restore these majestic giants to the wild Big Sur coast. Ross’s epic journey begins with a once-in-a-lifetime visit with Senior Wildlife Biologist and California Condor Recovery Program Manager, Joe Burnett, to a wild condor’s nest deep in the Big Sur wilderness. Ross witnesses the intimate interaction between a condor parent and its new chick in the crown of a giant redwood tree. Ross then travels with Joe to see the Condor’s Big Sur sanctuary, which was destroyed by the Dolan Fire in 2020.

Conservation
Extinction
Pollution

Talking Trees

Yes, trees can talk. They communicate through their roots. Please listen to what they have to say in this short film.

Forests
Extinction
Climate

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

Reboot

Humans have exploited Earth to the point where it is no longer possible to live on it. Their only option is to relocate to Mars. When the last group of people has boarded the spaceship for the red planet, the Earth can finally breathe easy. Like an expressionist painting, Reboot depicts a world in which the absence of our species is the only chance nature has to recover its lushness and flourish once more.

Animation
Crisis
Cosmos

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