For the first ever Wildlife Wednesday I’d like to talk about new species of wildlife being discovered all over the world.
Modern humans, or Homo Sapiens, were present in Africa 200,000 years ago and began to disperse out of Africa in groups about 50,000 years ago. Although 200,000 years seems like a long time for us humans, geologically that is a very short time period. The Earth is estimated at 4.5 billion years old. About 50,000 years ago language, music and culture began developing in our ancient relatives. It is only in the last 12,000 years that we began to cultivate plants and animals and develop agricultural practices, and ancient civilizations (such as Mesopotamia) are only 6,000 years old. Since then, science and technology have been the driving forces of humans, forever trying to uncover the secrets of our planet.
Long before our ancient ancestors evolved into modern humans, there were plants and animals, some species are dated millions of years old. For example, many species of sharks and fish are 100 + million years old. Jellyfish are 505 million years old! These are species we have known about for a long time, and are able to calculate their ages using fossil evidence and carbon dating.
With humans inhabiting nearly every corner of the world, it’s hard to imagine that there are still more creatures out there that we have yet to discover, but you may be surprised to know that there are new species being discovered every year! A new deep sea creature is discovered almost every time scientists venture down into the deep dark ocean. Apparently we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the ocean! Mariana’s Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, is over 36,000 feet deep. The tallest mountain on Earth, Mt. Everest, is just over 29,000 feet.
“The Mariana Trench’s microscopic inhabitants might even shed light on the emergence of life on Earth. Some researchers, such as Patricia Fryer et alat University of Hawaii, have speculated that serpentine mud volcanoes located near ocean trenches might have provided the right conditions for our planet’s first life-forms. Additionally, studying rocks from ocean trenches could lead to a better understanding of the earthquakes that create the powerful and devastating tsunamis seen around the Pacific Rim, geologists say.”
Learn more about this vast, unexplored place here.
But it’s not just living plants and animals that are being discovered…New Species of Massive Dinosaur Discovered in Africa
(Huffington Post article, Sept 10th, 2014)
Besides the oceans deep and digging up fossils in Africa, 400 new species of animals and plants have been discovered in the Amazon rainforest in the past 4 years! These include: the purring monkey, vegetarian piraña, and thimble frog.
Check out the full article published by The Guardian in 2013: here.
Purring Monkey
More recently, the International Institute for Species Exploration posted an article of the recent species discovered in 2014. Their list includes the Olinguito, a small raccoon-like carnivore that lives in the trees of the Andes mountains in Ecuador and Chile.
“It is the first new carnivorous mammal described in the Western Hemisphere in 35 years.”
Read about the rest of the newly discovered creatures here.
Olinguito
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Although we may think that we know everything, we definitely do not. I believe that we are rapidly approaching a tipping point in terms of sustainable energy and climate change, and we have a long way to go before we can successfully find the balance between humans and nature. There are many extremely biologically diverse regions on the planet, and it is these areas we must strive to protect. Many of the plants in these diverse regions, such as the Amazon and many other areas in South America, have long been used by the native tribes as healing medicinal plants, and western medicine could take a lesson or two from them. We are only a tiny part of this intricate system, yet we undoubtedly cause the most damage. The fact that scientists are discovering new plants and animals is important because it proves that there is much to learn about the natural world we inhabit.
“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”
– Aldo Leopold, Round River : From the Journals of Aldo Leopold
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