Morning Ed: Wildlife {2018.04.23.M}

8 thoughts on “Morning Ed: Wildlife {2018.04.23.M}”

1. WI3: the article IS kind of stupid, but yeah, the “charismatic megavertebrates” get all the press, when the little things like soil invertebrates are probably what’s keeping life on this planet going. But little non-furry things are a hard sell to most people; I remember all the sneering over protecting snail darters, and they’re even vertebrates.

   (Disclaimer: soil invertebrates are one of my research foci.)Report

   1. Maybe if they had a little backbone, people wouldn’t walk all over them!Report

   2. Except earthworms, most people get why earthworms are important.Report

      1. Indeed Spice is life so we must revere the worms. At least that is what i remember from high school biology.Report

         1. I don’t know if it’s ‘life’ as such, but if you want to get anywhere in this universe, the spice must flow.Report

      2. They’re for fishing, right?

         (Just kidding, everyone knows the only type of fishing allowed is catch-and-release fly fishing for artisanal Steelhead.)Report

      3. Ironically, the “typical” earthworm people think of (Lumbricius terrestris) is not native to the US and is actually kind of problematic in some northern forests, because it eats up the leaf litter faster than it would have turned over with the smaller native worms.Report

2. “If we can clone Barbra Streisand’s dogs”

   Not sure if that was kinda tongue in cheek, but we understand dogs WAYYYYY better than we understand whales, or pandas, or etc. Genetically as well as in other ways. Experimenting with dog breeding goes back 100s of years.Report

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