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Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

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Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#101

Post by eurleif »

nazar wrote: post #99
JL2010 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as there's something there to eat cats. Introducing one invasive species to cure another can lead to unpredictable ordeals.

There are always big predators at top of the biological food-energy chain. They are few in numbers. Anyways, I believe populations of cats and rats will fluctuate. Increase in cats will cause decrease in rats and then subsequent decrease in cats. Like phase difference between sine and cosine wave graphs. I believe introducing some small wild cat population would be a right thing to do, tho I would like to hear opinio…

Wouldn't the cats eat the insects?

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#102

Post by JL2010 »

nazar wrote: post #99
JL2010 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as there's something there to eat cats. Introducing one invasive species to cure another can lead to unpredictable ordeals.

There are always big predators at top of the biological food-energy chain. They are few in numbers. Anyways, I believe populations of cats and rats will fluctuate. Increase in cats will cause decrease in rats and then subsequent decrease in cats. Like phase difference between sine and cosine wave graphs. I believe introducing some small wild cat population would be a right thing to do, tho I would like to hear opinio…

A reasonable model if you assumed that cats exclusively ate rats - and wouldn't wreak havoc on any other native rodent populations (if they still exist).

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#103

Post by PotatoEngineer »

nazar wrote: post #99
JL2010 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as there's something there to eat cats. Introducing one invasive species to cure another can lead to unpredictable ordeals.

There are always big predators at top of the biological food-energy chain. They are few in numbers. Anyways, I believe populations of cats and rats will fluctuate. Increase in cats will cause decrease in rats and then subsequent decrease in cats. Like phase difference between sine and cosine wave graphs. I believe introducing some small wild cat population would be a right thing to do, tho I would like to hear opinio…

Don't cats eat insects, too? I'm all in favor of getting rid of the rats, but I don't think cats are a solution.

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#104

Post by bonobo »

juliano_q wrote: post #78

This story gave me a weird feeling and reminded me of the Dodo ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo ). This animal was extincted by man only 83 years of it was discovered. I am glad we have will/technology enough today to try to repair this kind of mistakes.

Stories like this always make me remember of the tasmanian wolf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine). I always wanted to see one of those alive.

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#105

Post by nigelsampson »

nazar wrote: post #99
JL2010 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as there's something there to eat cats. Introducing one invasive species to cure another can lead to unpredictable ordeals.

There are always big predators at top of the biological food-energy chain. They are few in numbers. Anyways, I believe populations of cats and rats will fluctuate. Increase in cats will cause decrease in rats and then subsequent decrease in cats. Like phase difference between sine and cosine wave graphs. I believe introducing some small wild cat population would be a right thing to do, tho I would like to hear opinio…

Trouble with cats is they often destroy bird populations as well, not sure how much of a problem this is in Australia, but in New Zealand feral cats are up there with pests that need to wiped off any island that is to be rehabilitated.

The Stephens Island Wren is an excellent example of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephens_Island_Wren

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#106

Post by slug »

nazar wrote: post #99
JL2010 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as there's something there to eat cats. Introducing one invasive species to cure another can lead to unpredictable ordeals.

There are always big predators at top of the biological food-energy chain. They are few in numbers. Anyways, I believe populations of cats and rats will fluctuate. Increase in cats will cause decrease in rats and then subsequent decrease in cats. Like phase difference between sine and cosine wave graphs. I believe introducing some small wild cat population would be a right thing to do, tho I would like to hear opinio…

Unfortunately cats don't eat only rats, they also like birds for instance. Look at the dodo extension mentioned in another thread, domestic animals played an important role there. Then the birds usually keep (nasty) insects population in control, etc and keeping a balance is tricky.

Snakes or other crawling rat predators would probably be a better idea, but then trying to convince the island people to share their space with snakes and weird looking insects at the same time would probably not go well :)

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#107

Post by mirkules »

nolok wrote: post #16
threepointone wrote: post #12

This is a fascinating story, but I must ask - does this belong on hacker news? Please, I ask with no intended malice.

While I see your point, it's come to a point where I prefer to see such interesting non-tech article rather than the crcle jerking of (poorly made) benchmarks / you should do this / no you should do that / php should die / my answer to "php should die" that I should have posted as a comment but didn't because I'm only milking for more adviews / etc ...

Besides your point with which I agree (and am saddened by), the point of this community is to stimulate our collective minds, discuss ideas we wouldn't normally think of. Evolution is one such topic of conversation -- what evolutionary traits made these creatures grow so big on Ball's Pyramid, how did they grow so big so quickly, how did they get there from the other island, etc...

By expanding our collective horizons, we are able to extrapolate useful information and perhaps even apply it to our jobs or startups. For example, ant colony optimization came about by studying ants - not exactly what the OP would consider HN material. Genetic algorithms came about by studying genetics, mutations, and all things Darwin.

So instead of asking, "why is this on HN," we should ask ourselves or each other "how/what can we learn from this and apply it to our fields?"

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#108

Post by nazar »

eurleif wrote: post #101
nazar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always big predators at top of the biological food-energy chain. They are few in numbers. Anyways, I believe populations of cats and rats will fluctuate. Increase in cats will cause decrease in rats and then subsequent decrease in cats. Like phase difference between sine and cosine wave graphs. I believe introducing some small wild cat population would be a right thing to do, tho I would like to hear opinio…

Wouldn't the cats eat the insects?

Not exactly their niche. They might hunt for insects, but it won't be enough in terms of energy acquired. So probably they will reduce in population until rats' population will restore back.

And its good to keep rats busy. They won't wander as freely as they do now and hence eat less insects.

Re: Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides For 80 Years

#110

Post by nazar »

slug wrote: post #106
nazar wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always big predators at top of the biological food-energy chain. They are few in numbers. Anyways, I believe populations of cats and rats will fluctuate. Increase in cats will cause decrease in rats and then subsequent decrease in cats. Like phase difference between sine and cosine wave graphs. I believe introducing some small wild cat population would be a right thing to do, tho I would like to hear opinio…

Unfortunately cats don't eat only rats, they also like birds for instance. Look at the dodo extension mentioned in another thread, domestic animals played an important role there. Then the birds usually keep (nasty) insects population in control, etc and keeping a balance is tricky. Snakes or other crawling rat predators would probably be a better idea, but then trying to convince the island people to share their spa…

Snakes have bad impact on birds as well. Maybe not adults, but the eggs. I believe there is always a bigger fish in the ocean, everything is just a matter of equilibrium and its rules of self-control. Humans and rats probably are the only species that ignore those rules.
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