4 ms·
Invasive species (native to Asia) and 1.5-2” (40-50mm) long. I’m glad they are gone! https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plantsplant-healthplant-pests-and-diseases/nort
by cbsks 2y ago
Invasive species (native to Asia) and 1.5-2” (40-50mm) long. I’m glad they are gone!
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plantsplant-healthplant-pests-and-diseases/northern-giant-hornet https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plantsplant-healthplant-pests-and...
- mihular 2y ago[flagged]
- bryanrasmussen 2y agoIn about 20 years there will be a large movement to bring the hornet back because a subsection of society thinks their eradication caused some uptick of reported birth defects.
- vkou 2y agoWhy wait 20 years, when we can start today? Expects tell us the hornet needs to be eradicated, but we all know that experts have been wrong before.
- bryanrasmussen 2y agodoctors want to put needles in your arm bigger than the needles of the hornet, but they want the hornet gone! Afraid of a little honest competition says I!
- heresie-dabord 2y agoThe richer oxygenation of the Earth's atmosphere in a previous geological era favoured the development of very large insects. Some wingspans attained 70cm! But the evolution of insectivorous birds likely favoured the smaller, nimbler insect variants.[1] And then there is historical climate change as factor, not to mention K-Pg Extinction. [2,3] [1] https://news.ucsc.edu/2012/06/giant-insects.html https://news.ucsc.edu/2012/06/giant-insects.html [2] https://www.sci.news/paleontology/ypresiosirex-orthosemos-giant-horntail-wood-wasps-03458.html https://www.sci.news/paleontology/ypresiosirex-orthosemos-gi... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_boundary https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene...
- Brian_K_White 2y ago[flagged]
- genericone 2y agoThese topic-adjacent expert responses just reek of point harvesting by an LLM, I didn't do any such downvoting, but in the last year I've changed to this viewpoint.
- brookst 2y agoWait, so if it’s accurate, interesting, new to most of us, and adjacent to the topic… that’s a bad thing?
- tptacek 2y agoIt is if it's LLM-generated; strictly verboten on HN. This doesn't look like that to me though.
- heresie-dabord 2y agoGood y'all, however much I (born human and have all my shots) may have the misfortune to attract downvotes, I'm not a fershlugginer LLM. (Not sure what this says about my social skills, no wonder my dance card is M.T.) I do think that it was an interesting addition to the discussion of giant buglies. I personally had never thought about how predation by birds would have pressured prehistoric insects... and made our feathered friends so specialised and good at what they do. Best human wishes!
- tptacek 2y agoI don't think you are! I was only moved to comment by the implication upthread that an informative LLM-generated comment might be welcome here. But yes, another HN norm is not making insinuations about commenters on threads (if people have concerns, they're meant to email hn@yc about it). And yet another norm is not to drive threads into their own navels with metacommentary, so here's where I should shut up.