Friday, March 29, 2024

News Destination For The Global Indian Community

News Destination For The Global Indian Community

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Extinct wildlife species making a comeback

Extinct wildlife species making a comeback

A series of discoveries on certain species that were thought to be extinct reminds us of the unfinished job of wildlife conservation.

While it may seem like a miracle, especially at a time when biodiversity is under threat, but species believed to have been extinct are being rediscovered, changing our perceptions about the continuity of the evolutionary chain. With reports of the Galápagos tortoise making a comeback after 100 years in the islands, India, too, has been notching up sightings of rare creatures, once considered exotic by colonial era naturalists, but lost to time. On February 15, researchers discovered a new species of keelback snake in Arunachal Pradesh. A brownish-yellow frog was also spotted in Arunachal Pradesh in June 2017, with markings that turned fluorescent in torchlight, last seen nearly 36 years ago in Tibet. Over the last couple of years, the Northeast has been in the limelight for discovery of sub-species of endangered hog deer, frogs, geckos, diatoms and insects. Even the Western Ghats have reported rediscovery of species that have been found to be endemic to the region’s moss, ferns and rocks. Global studies indicate that 400 species of mammals have been discovered since 1993 with some scientists calling our times the “new age of discoveries.”

So how does one explain this boom in the discovery of new species at a time when even dominant species worldwide are disappearing at unprecedented rates and human depredations have resulted in a significant negative impact on the planet’s ecosystems? Even livestock is predicted to be in short supply by 2050. But there is nothing miraculous or inexplicable about it. Turns out that the loss of major species as we know them has fuelled an unprecedented, multi-nation alliance on conserving existing ones and documenting every life form unaccounted for so far. And with the United Nations prioritising biodiversity as a common concern of humankind, countries have joined hands to find species and then draw up a plan to contain their loss. This rekindled interest in biodiversity studies is leading researchers and conservationists to once again go out on scientific expeditions to under-explored regions of the world, carefully cataloguing the richness of creation. One of the study zones of the multilateral team of experts happens to be the foothills of the Himalayas. So what we are seeing is essentially a revival of the explorer’s spirit in the 18th and 19th centuries when recording natural history was equivalent to the thrill of a new discovery. We simply stopped looking around with the same spirit of inquiry and the advent of the industrial age. This means that we are discovering what has been unseen so far and in certain cases have missed their mutation to a different kind of subspecies or migration to a more fertile ecosystem. Now with advances in the field of molecular genetics and genomics and technological aids, we are able to identify and classify creatures better. For example, the frog species in Arunachal inhabits moss-covered rocky stratum along hill streams in mixed wet tropical forest types everywhere. Previously only thought to inhabit the Talley Valley, where it thinned out over time, it is now being found in a wider range due to the availability of similar habitats. There are over 50 species of frogs with many exhibiting overlapping morphological characters, making their identification in the field difficult. What we have completely  disregarded is that the degradation of forests and ever-mushrooming urban development has meant that some species have chosen to survive in a modified habitat. However, that doesn’t mean that species are safe. It just means that we need to conserve and find the original species more. Rather than aliens, we must be curious about the earth-born, which are out there, waiting to be rediscovered. And saved for posterity.

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Writer: Editor – The Pioneer

Extinct wildlife species making a comeback

Extinct wildlife species making a comeback

A series of discoveries on certain species that were thought to be extinct reminds us of the unfinished job of wildlife conservation.

While it may seem like a miracle, especially at a time when biodiversity is under threat, but species believed to have been extinct are being rediscovered, changing our perceptions about the continuity of the evolutionary chain. With reports of the Galápagos tortoise making a comeback after 100 years in the islands, India, too, has been notching up sightings of rare creatures, once considered exotic by colonial era naturalists, but lost to time. On February 15, researchers discovered a new species of keelback snake in Arunachal Pradesh. A brownish-yellow frog was also spotted in Arunachal Pradesh in June 2017, with markings that turned fluorescent in torchlight, last seen nearly 36 years ago in Tibet. Over the last couple of years, the Northeast has been in the limelight for discovery of sub-species of endangered hog deer, frogs, geckos, diatoms and insects. Even the Western Ghats have reported rediscovery of species that have been found to be endemic to the region’s moss, ferns and rocks. Global studies indicate that 400 species of mammals have been discovered since 1993 with some scientists calling our times the “new age of discoveries.”

So how does one explain this boom in the discovery of new species at a time when even dominant species worldwide are disappearing at unprecedented rates and human depredations have resulted in a significant negative impact on the planet’s ecosystems? Even livestock is predicted to be in short supply by 2050. But there is nothing miraculous or inexplicable about it. Turns out that the loss of major species as we know them has fuelled an unprecedented, multi-nation alliance on conserving existing ones and documenting every life form unaccounted for so far. And with the United Nations prioritising biodiversity as a common concern of humankind, countries have joined hands to find species and then draw up a plan to contain their loss. This rekindled interest in biodiversity studies is leading researchers and conservationists to once again go out on scientific expeditions to under-explored regions of the world, carefully cataloguing the richness of creation. One of the study zones of the multilateral team of experts happens to be the foothills of the Himalayas. So what we are seeing is essentially a revival of the explorer’s spirit in the 18th and 19th centuries when recording natural history was equivalent to the thrill of a new discovery. We simply stopped looking around with the same spirit of inquiry and the advent of the industrial age. This means that we are discovering what has been unseen so far and in certain cases have missed their mutation to a different kind of subspecies or migration to a more fertile ecosystem. Now with advances in the field of molecular genetics and genomics and technological aids, we are able to identify and classify creatures better. For example, the frog species in Arunachal inhabits moss-covered rocky stratum along hill streams in mixed wet tropical forest types everywhere. Previously only thought to inhabit the Talley Valley, where it thinned out over time, it is now being found in a wider range due to the availability of similar habitats. There are over 50 species of frogs with many exhibiting overlapping morphological characters, making their identification in the field difficult. What we have completely  disregarded is that the degradation of forests and ever-mushrooming urban development has meant that some species have chosen to survive in a modified habitat. However, that doesn’t mean that species are safe. It just means that we need to conserve and find the original species more. Rather than aliens, we must be curious about the earth-born, which are out there, waiting to be rediscovered. And saved for posterity.

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Writer: Editor – The Pioneer

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