To: Gauguin who wrote (41972 ) 11/17/1999 2:54:00 PM From: Crocodile Read Replies (3) | Respond to
Have just been reading an excellent book... "Watching from the Edge of Extinction" by Beverly and Stephen Stearns... Fascinating... also very maddening when you read some of the chapters about species extinction... how some small change had such a large impact... Also, the insane acts of destruction by certain individuals. One example was a naturalist/missionary by the name of J.T. Gulick who conducted a rather outrageous collection of land snails in Hawaii during the late 19th c. His practices were insane... collecting snails by the barrel-full and he is quoted in the book as having written this description of the collection which he shipped back to England...Maculinea arion butterflies of England is fascinating. The larvae are raised by small red ants which take the young larvae into their nests and feed them, but are eventually devoured by them as they grow. However, there is only one type of red ant that will do this...the rest will bring the larvae into their nests, but usually turn on it eventually... The one type of red ant that will not kill the larvae must live in a place where there is meadow thyme which is kept clipped short by grazing animals...but as animals are not allowed to range free, the habitat has been destroyed. I find all of that very fascinating, but also of interest is reading about one biologist, Jeremy Thomas, who finally discovered the reason for the extinction of the butterflies and the variations in the ants.... quite a melodramatic tale...
