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The world’s largest bee and the cautionary tale of its rediscovery
- DrBazza 5y agoReminds me of the Lord Howe Island stick insect - or tree lobster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryococelus_australis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryococelus_australis
- toiletfuneral 5y agothese articles are funny to me "gee why can't we save this animal?" we all know, its because the ruling class decided the biome will be managed by the free market, and thats exactly what's happening. The free market has decided much of nature shouldn't exist, like reefs & forest etc...I don't really know what anyone expects? I get sad when I think of the amazing things my children will never see but wow, its cool to see the stock market doing good or whatever new startups are making more dumb useless bullshit nfts or whatever
- whatshisface 5y agoThe biome is not being managed by the free market. Slices of biodiversity are not being bought, sold or invested in. The biosphere is outside the system and untracked by its incentives.
- toiletfuneral 5y ago
- nickff 5y ago>"the ruling class decided the biome will be managed by the free market... The free market has decided much of nature shouldn't exist, like reefs & forest etc." I am not sure where you get the idea that the 'ruling class' delegated this decision, or that the free market decided anything at all. Historically, the 'ruling classes' don't tend to share power, and have made plenty of consequential environmental decisions with no market feedback (see Mao's Four Pests campaign). The free market on the other hand is just a mechanism for pricing and exchange, it doesn't decide anything; individual market actors make decisions, and spontaneous order results. I'm even more confused about how you got from the biome to the stock market and NFTs; perhaps you could enlighten me? NFTs seem to be a bubble, but they're not as wasteful as proof of work tokens.
- iratewizard 5y ago> I'm even more confused about how you got from the biome to the stock market and NFTs He's regurgitating trending topics from Reddit. Don't overthink the thought process of a comment automata.
- JetAlone 5y agoCommentomata Caummentomata Caummtomata Common Tomato
- toiletfuneral 5y ago
- toiletfuneral 5y ago
- travisgriggs 5y agoIf you read closely (imo), it’s the desperate class(es) on both supply and purchasing side that drove the poaching cycle. Generally speaking, ruling class are secure enough in their status they don’t need the “short term sale over the long term benefits” or the “look I’m special/unique too because I bought a really big bee that you don’t have.”
- Nursie 5y agoI didn't see much about the buyers of the bee in the article, but I imagine that someone buying a really big bee for thousands of dollars is unlikely to be in the 'desperate' classes. For a start they have access to thousands of dollars!
- heliodor 5y agoYou seem to be conveniently leaving out that we all enjoy having air conditioning and modern forms of transportation, to name a few positive things. But yes, society is here trading coral reefs for NFT art, right?
- unixhero 5y agoThe article does not show the foto of the insect while secured in the glass. Why oh why.
- anonymousiam 5y ago"The giant bee deserves to be here, with its comically large jawline, just like the everyday earwigs, crickets, and moths." To quote Clint Eastwood; "Deserves got nothing to do with it." It will survive if it is suited to survive, and now apparently Man has become its worst natural enemy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4pRe8ul7KQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4pRe8ul7KQ
- taffronaut 5y agoCollective action on a small scale (like the Florida Panther) or on a larger scale like the worldwide ban on the ivory trade has been effective. We have to pick our battles. 'Deserves' may not be the best word, but it signifies that we can decide if we want to.
- ppod 5y agoIf you're saying that the bee had it coming - we all got it coming, kid.
- EricMausler 5y ago>holding a vial with the hefty insect inside. (They released it after taking photos.) >Shortly after he got back to the United States, Wyman saw that someone was trying to sell a specimen of the bee on eBay for a few thousand dollars
- dr_dshiv 5y agoSince this article has the potential to amplify the problem, it’s too bad they didn’t have a link at the end to donate to a “save the bees” charity. Perhaps, for instance, lands in those regions could be bought and protected.
- progre 5y agoThe article mentions a beetle named after Adolf Hitler. Would you like to know more? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anophthalmus_hitleri https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anophthalmus_hitleri
- JetAlone 5y agoIn the talk page: "Right now, the article says, Its species name was made a dedication to the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. The genus name means blind. The dedication did not go unnoticed by the Führer, who sent Sheibel a letter, showing his gratitude. "Blind Hitler" doesn't sound like a dedication, more like an insult. Was anybody unaware of this at that time or simply didn't care? --Revth 05:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC) The part of the name meaning 'blind' is the genus name, it was already there when Schiebel discovered the beetle and he couldn't really do much more than just group it into that category, even less so renaming an already existing, and descriptive name like Anophthalmus. -Obli (Talk)? 10:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)" At first part of me thought a name-change might be appropriate. But I'm okay with calling this beetle a "Blind Hitler" even if the prejorative wasn't the entomologist's intention.
- sn00tz00t 5y agoMaybe private ownership of endangered species should be legalised to encourage breeding? They even admit in the article it just fuels the illicit trade, why not make it legal and try to push it in a positive direction?
- grapeskin 5y agoThe problem is people with zero experience involving raising endangered life will pay loads of money just to say they have something rare in their possession, and people will gladly harvest those things just for money. Endangered plants are an obvious example. They often take decades or centuries to regrow, and locals will happily dig them up to sell for a few bucks now in exchange for destroying their future. Governments usually grant special permission to zoos and people with expertise to research how to properly breed animals, and that seems to generally work out better than just throwing them at anyone with some cash who just saw a cute animal on youtube.
- acceptably_slow 5y agoGreat idea, until it's your enterprising neighbour trying to breed black rhinos in their back yard.
- pvaldes 5y agoAs long as it has enough space and resources, that would be a fantastic idea in fact.
- Nursie 5y agoBecause the animals will die in transit, or die off under the 'care' of their new owners, either through incompetence or purely because nobody understands how to keep them alive in any form of captivity in the first place. And the people in the local area will facilitate their local extinction in their natural habitat, because of money. Which (given the first point) is likely to accelerate their total extinction. And if any of those species do survive after such commercial relocation, they may well escape and become invasive feral species in their new home. Basically, commercial incentives to fuck with nature are a bad idea. What we could really do with are commercial incentives to leave it the hell alone.