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Sea level rise causes local extinction of rare cactus, an omen for conservation efforts

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Tuesday, July 16, 2024

As out-of-control heat cooks our planet, shattering temperature records for the last 13 consecutive months, it melts polar ice and raises sea levels. Most people are familiar with how this works, but we typically only think of the consequences of sea level rise as threatening to drown Miami, for example. But extinction is also a factor, as evidenced by recent news that the United States has suffered its first-ever local extinction as a result of sea levels rising. The victim is the iconic 20-foot tall Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii). The prickly behemoth — encased in light green skin and sporting cream-colored, garlic scented flowers — was first discovered in 1992, according to the study published in the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. From an initial population of more than 150 stems in the Florida Keys, the once-thriving Key Largo tree cacti began dwindling due to salt water intrusion, soil depletion, intensified hurricanes and unusually high tides, all of which are either caused or exacerbated by global warming. As a result, the Key Largo tree cactus is now locally extinct from both the Florida Keys and the United States as a whole, though other related cacti are indigenous to Cuba and the Bahamas. Even worse, the scientists who chronicled the Key Largo tree cactus' extinction are now predicting that this is only foreshadowing future local extinctions as part of the ongoing sixth mass extinction driven by human activity. A 2023 study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that humans have caused as many extinctions over the past 500 years as would have occurred without them over 18,000 years. Similarly, a 2021 study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment reported that the average predicted extinction rate for freshwater animals and plants today is three orders of magnitude higher than it was 66 million years ago, when the dinosaurs famously went extinct during the so-called Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. "This is the first of many losses likely to be suffered in the coming decades." One of the primary culprits behind these mass extinctions is climate change, in which the planet overheats because humans burn fossil fuels that pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Among other things, climate change melts Earth's ice caps and thus causes sea levels to rise. As for the Key Largo tree cactus, "This is the first of many losses likely to be suffered in the coming decades," research botanist Jimmy Lange told Salon. "Much of the unique Keys flora are found at relatively low elevations, even for the Keys. This situation is confounded by decades of habitat loss, degradation and other factors like invasive species that threaten the integrity of these terrestrial ecosystems. Luckily, there are so many great land managers, NGOs and [government] agencies working together to preserve these unique habitats and the natural resources they support." Though this extinction is ominous for other flora and fauna in ecologically precarious regions, Lange also notes that the Key Largo tree cactus has intrinsic value of its own. Its loss in the United States is irreplaceable. "I remember the first time I hiked out through the mangrove swamp and into the dense brush where this population occurred and being amazed by the sheer size of the stand," Lange said. "Dozens of large stems towering above the shrub canopy, covered in large tufts of hair. It was quite the site to behold. It speaks to the treasure that is the Florida Keys flora, where so many unique plants, many at the northern extent of their tropical range, make a home on the rocky substrate formed by ancient coral reefs during periods of much higher sea level." Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes. "Apart from species like this that are found in other parts of the tropics, many plants and animals are endemic (found nowhere else) to the Keys." Lange added, "Apart from species like this that are found in other parts of the tropics, many plants and animals are endemic (found nowhere else) to the Keys." This is not to say that the Key Largo tree cactus is incapable of a comeback in the United States. Quite to the contrary, Jennifer Possley — the director of regional conservation at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden — hopes that it can be revived. “We have tentative plans with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to replant some in the wild,” Possley said in a statement. The conservationists became aware of the need for major restoration efforts over the past decade, as one natural event after another took a recorded toll on the cactus population. This included Hurricane Irma, a category 5 storm that created a 5-foot surge as it swept across southern Florida in 2017. Because the highest point on Key Largo is only 15 feet above sea level, large portions of the island were flooded for days after the storm. Exceptionally high king tides in 2019 likewise flooded large portions of the island for months, and by 2021 only six Key Largo tree cactus stems remained alive. To salvage the plants that at this point were obviously doomed, a team of scientists allowed the plants to flower and fruit before saving as much green material as possible, to replant it in greenhouses or outdoor controlled settings. So while technically the plant isn't extinct on the same level as a Tyrannosaurus rex, it is still severe and can negatively impact ecosystems. These are the patchwork efforts made by local scientists to protect their ecosystems from global warming — but they know that, while they may win a few battles, they are losing the larger war. "People should get out and experience the unique ecosystems of the Florida Keys while they can," Lange warned. As the study notes in its abstract, "The other cacti in the region, and all rare plants in the Florida Keys, are threatened with a similar fate." Read more about climate change

The Key Largo tree cactus is the first locally extinct species due to sea level rise — but it won't be the last

As out-of-control heat cooks our planet, shattering temperature records for the last 13 consecutive months, it melts polar ice and raises sea levels. Most people are familiar with how this works, but we typically only think of the consequences of sea level rise as threatening to drown Miami, for example. But extinction is also a factor, as evidenced by recent news that the United States has suffered its first-ever local extinction as a result of sea levels rising. The victim is the iconic 20-foot tall Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii).

The prickly behemoth — encased in light green skin and sporting cream-colored, garlic scented flowers — was first discovered in 1992, according to the study published in the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas. From an initial population of more than 150 stems in the Florida Keys, the once-thriving Key Largo tree cacti began dwindling due to salt water intrusion, soil depletion, intensified hurricanes and unusually high tides, all of which are either caused or exacerbated by global warming. As a result, the Key Largo tree cactus is now locally extinct from both the Florida Keys and the United States as a whole, though other related cacti are indigenous to Cuba and the Bahamas.

Even worse, the scientists who chronicled the Key Largo tree cactus' extinction are now predicting that this is only foreshadowing future local extinctions as part of the ongoing sixth mass extinction driven by human activity.

A 2023 study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that humans have caused as many extinctions over the past 500 years as would have occurred without them over 18,000 years. Similarly, a 2021 study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment reported that the average predicted extinction rate for freshwater animals and plants today is three orders of magnitude higher than it was 66 million years ago, when the dinosaurs famously went extinct during the so-called Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.

"This is the first of many losses likely to be suffered in the coming decades."

One of the primary culprits behind these mass extinctions is climate change, in which the planet overheats because humans burn fossil fuels that pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Among other things, climate change melts Earth's ice caps and thus causes sea levels to rise.

As for the Key Largo tree cactus, "This is the first of many losses likely to be suffered in the coming decades," research botanist Jimmy Lange told Salon. "Much of the unique Keys flora are found at relatively low elevations, even for the Keys. This situation is confounded by decades of habitat loss, degradation and other factors like invasive species that threaten the integrity of these terrestrial ecosystems. Luckily, there are so many great land managers, NGOs and [government] agencies working together to preserve these unique habitats and the natural resources they support."

Though this extinction is ominous for other flora and fauna in ecologically precarious regions, Lange also notes that the Key Largo tree cactus has intrinsic value of its own. Its loss in the United States is irreplaceable.

"I remember the first time I hiked out through the mangrove swamp and into the dense brush where this population occurred and being amazed by the sheer size of the stand," Lange said. "Dozens of large stems towering above the shrub canopy, covered in large tufts of hair. It was quite the site to behold. It speaks to the treasure that is the Florida Keys flora, where so many unique plants, many at the northern extent of their tropical range, make a home on the rocky substrate formed by ancient coral reefs during periods of much higher sea level."

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

"Apart from species like this that are found in other parts of the tropics, many plants and animals are endemic (found nowhere else) to the Keys."

Lange added, "Apart from species like this that are found in other parts of the tropics, many plants and animals are endemic (found nowhere else) to the Keys."

This is not to say that the Key Largo tree cactus is incapable of a comeback in the United States. Quite to the contrary, Jennifer Possley — the director of regional conservation at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden — hopes that it can be revived.

“We have tentative plans with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to replant some in the wild,” Possley said in a statement. The conservationists became aware of the need for major restoration efforts over the past decade, as one natural event after another took a recorded toll on the cactus population. This included Hurricane Irma, a category 5 storm that created a 5-foot surge as it swept across southern Florida in 2017. Because the highest point on Key Largo is only 15 feet above sea level, large portions of the island were flooded for days after the storm. Exceptionally high king tides in 2019 likewise flooded large portions of the island for months, and by 2021 only six Key Largo tree cactus stems remained alive.

To salvage the plants that at this point were obviously doomed, a team of scientists allowed the plants to flower and fruit before saving as much green material as possible, to replant it in greenhouses or outdoor controlled settings. So while technically the plant isn't extinct on the same level as a Tyrannosaurus rex, it is still severe and can negatively impact ecosystems.

These are the patchwork efforts made by local scientists to protect their ecosystems from global warming — but they know that, while they may win a few battles, they are losing the larger war.

"People should get out and experience the unique ecosystems of the Florida Keys while they can," Lange warned. As the study notes in its abstract, "The other cacti in the region, and all rare plants in the Florida Keys, are threatened with a similar fate."

Read more

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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.

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