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This seems to me like a case of empathy gone awry. All that work and effort to bring back a species of insects? There is no balance to preserve; they've been gone for almost a century. Those resources could be spent preserving human life.
We all have hobbies and passions.
Respect to the little feller for making it out of that egg. Any animal that starts life having to unglue their feet from the bottom of a vacuum-packed, delivery case is a winner.
I would be curious about the details of such "unpacking". The apparent volume ratio of the born insect over its egg's is quite stunning.
This seems to me like a case of empathy gone awry. All that work and effort to bring back a species of insects? There is no balance to preserve; they've been gone for almost a century. Those resources could be spent preserving human life.
Or because of their large size, we could farm and grow them as alternative food source?
Possibilities!
This seems to me like a case of empathy gone awry. All that work and effort to bring back a species of insects? There is no balance to preserve; they've been gone for almost a century. Those resources could be spent preserving human life.
For this particular species of insect however, having the last 24 remaining individuals of the entire species (presumably) be dependent on a single small shrubbery makes me think the effort put into this rescue was more than warranted.
Specially considering their extinction was (indirectly) our fault and a mistake that could have been prevented with better education and oversight on who and what was brought along during our travels. Had their extinction been an entirely natural process, I might have agreed that their rescue would not have been such a high priority.
Of course there is the question of us disturbing ecological balance somewhere is natural or not. We are after all natural beings ourselves. Whether we are intelligent or not and have the capacity to reason about our actions is irrelevant in a strictly biological sense. But this discussion opens up a whole different can of worms.
edit: Fixed some grammar.
This is a fascinating story, but I must ask - does this belong on hacker news? Please, I ask with no intended malice.
Judging by the 200+ up votes, yes. Plus, the aforementioned hacker news guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be curious about the details of such "unpacking". The apparent volume ratio of the born insect over its egg's is quite stunning.
My first question is how "deep" the egg goes down into the sand. It could be a long tube protruding down into the sand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Judging by the 200+ up votes, yes. Plus, the aforementioned hacker news guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Every time I see someone ask, "does this belong on HN", I think exactly that. Obviously it was interesting enough for 200+ people, so if it's not interesting to you as an individual then you can move to the next article. It astonishes me how many people seem to think it's News instead of Hacker News.
Respect to the little feller for making it out of that egg. Any animal that starts life having to unglue their feet from the bottom of a vacuum-packed, delivery case is a winner.
I would be curious about the details of such "unpacking". The apparent volume ratio of the born insect over its egg's is quite stunning.