Why do Creatures go Extinct?

[melanie]

List of Extinct and Endangered Animals.

http://www.animalport.com/extinct-an...t-Animals.html

Why do creatures go extinct, did the assumed creator God of these creatures change his mind and decide he didn't want them anymore?

[Graybeard]

There are as many reasons as there are non-extinct species.

Red-Moustached Fruit Dove

Mercierii: and a purr that was thank you, wrapped up in yellow burry leaves.
Tristiami: mercy's yellow belly feathers,
whispery green, red-capped, Voyage of Venus -

Sailors and men in shiny black top hats
came walking off ships, their pockets full
of owlets, kittens, whiskery rats.

Why didn't they notice, after their animals ran,
so many pears, pulling branches down low,
and no doves to eat them?

"Well, in those days, you saw a lot of animals
running through the green leaves, with blood ringing their mouths.
We lost track."

Te Henua Enata: Land of Men
who ate the fruit themselves, hunched over in grief.



greg

[Graybeard]

Extinction occurs when the last members of a species die off. Mass extinctions can be caused by natural events such as volcanoes, disease or changes in global climate (ie: ice age), but extinctions may also be caused by human interactions with the environment. These may include, pollution, destruction of habitat or introduction of non-native species.

The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
of Mastodons ... are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just
is ferric oxide ... known as rust.

The Lions roar, the Serpents hiss
in what was proud Persepolis.

Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf
and I don't feel so well myself


greggy

[Graybeard]

Cross-Purposes

The fickle bee believes it’s he
Who profits from the flower;
But as he drinks, the flower thinks
She has him in her power.

Her nectar is the reason
That she blooms, the bee is sure;
But flower knows her nectar
Is there merely for allure.

And as he leaves, the bee believes
He”ll sample someone new;
But flower knows that where he goes,
Her pollen’s going, too.


greggy

[Graybeard]

The Arizona Jaguar

Description: Loner; nightfall eyes;
Coat of spots on spots (disguise);
Once the New World's largest cat;
Mountain, grassland habitat;
Fed on any kind of meat;
Stumbled down a one-way street;
Color of a jealous sun.
Status: Nowhere.
Future: None.


greggy

[Graybeard]

More than 90 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. As new species evolve to fit ever changing ecological niches, older species fade away. But the rate of extinction is far from constant. At least a handful of times in the last 500 million years, 50 to more than 90 percent of all species on Earth have disappeared in a geological blink of the eye.


Though these mass extinctions are deadly events, they open up the planet for new life-forms to emerge. Dinosaurs appeared after one of the biggest mass extinction events on Earth, the Permian-Triassic extinction about 250 million years ago. The most studied mass extinction, between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods about 65 million years ago, killed off the dinosaurs and made room for mammals to rapidly diversify and evolve.


The causes of these mass extinction events are unsolved mysteries, though volcanic eruptions and the impacts of large asteroids or comets are prime suspects in many of the cases. Both would eject tons of debris into the atmosphere, darkening the skies for at least months on end. Starved of sunlight, plants and plant-eating creatures would quickly die. Space rocks and volcanoes could also unleash toxic and heat-trapping gases that—once the dust settled—enable runaway global warming.


An extraterrestrial impact is most closely linked to the Cretaceous extinction event. A huge crater off Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula is dated to about 65 million years ago, coinciding with the extinction. Global warming fueled by volcanic eruptions at the Deccan Flats in India may also have aggravated the event. Whatever the cause, dinosaurs, as well as about half of all species on the planet, went extinct.


Massive floods of lava erupting from the central Atlantic magmatic province about 200 million years ago may explain the Triassic-Jurassic extinction. About 20 percent of all marine families went extinct, as well as most mammal-like creatures, many large amphibians, and all non-dinosaur archosaurs. An asteroid impact is another possible cause of the extinction, though a telltale crater has yet to be found.


Largest Ever Die-Off

The Permian-Triassic extinction event about 250 million years ago was the deadliest: More than 90 percent of all species perished. Many scientists believe an asteroid or comet triggered the massive die-off, but, again, no crater has been found. Another strong contender is flood volcanism from the Siberian Traps, a large igneous province in Russia. Impact-triggered volcanism is yet another possibility.


Starting about 360 million years ago, a drawn-out event eliminated about 70 percent of all marine species from Earth over a span of perhaps 20 million years. Pulses, each lasting 100,000 to 300,000 years, are noted within the larger late Devonian extinction. Insects, plants, and the first proto-amphibians were on land by then, though the extinctions dealt landlubbers a severe setback.


The Ordovician-Silurian extinction, about 440 million years ago, involved massive glaciations that locked up much of the world's water as ice and caused sea levels to drop precipitously. The event took its hardest toll on marine organisms such as shelled brachiopods, eel-like conodonts, and the trilobites.


Happening Now?

Today, many scientists think the evidence indicates a sixth mass extinction is under way. The blame for this one, perhaps the fastest in Earth's history, falls firmly on the shoulders of humans. By the year 2100, human activities such as pollution, land clearing, and overfishing may have driven more than half of the world's marine and land species to extinction.




greggy

[Graybeard]

Olivia Binfield and lucy the Snake poem Britains Got Talent 2011


This is really really worth watching .....


cool bananas ... greg

[Graybeard]

ALL GONE FOREVER

Tasmanian Wolf or Thylacine, Thylacinus cynocephalus

The Tasmanian Wolf is not a wolf, but a carnivorous marsupial and a relative of wombats and kangaroos. It even has a pouch. Tasmanian officials promoting ranching paid bounties to hunters. Believed to be extinct for well over half a century, unconfirmed reported sightings persist.



English Wolf

The wolf became extinct in England in 1486, Scotland in 1743, and Ireland in 1770.



Quagga

Quagga, Equus burchelli quagga, of the Karoo Plains and southern Free State of South Africa were a subspecies of the Burchell Zebra, although their unique appearance wouldn't necessarily make this apparent. Some thought incorrectly that the Quagga was the female of Burchell's Zebra, probably because the natives gave both zebras the same name.

In the wild, Quaggas, Ostriches and Wildebeests often grazed together in what was termed the "triple alliance". The Quagga's hearing, the Ostrich's eyesight and the Wildibeast's keen sense of smell comprised excellent defense from predators for the entire herd. However, its limited range made it all the more vulnerable and Quaggas were hunted to the brink of extinction in the mid 19th Century by settlers razing sheep, goats and other livestock. The last Quagga died in in 1883 in an Amsterdam Zoo.



Turanian Tiger, Caspian Tiger

Caspian Tigers lived in China, Tajikistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey. They were hunted for their furs and to protect livestock. A ban on hunting the Caspian Tiger in the USSR in 1947 followed their greatest destruction in the 1930s. The last Caspian Tiger reported shot was in 1957.



The Dawn Horse, Eohippus, Hyracotherium

Hyracotherium, the earliest known horse, lived in the early Eocene, about 50 million years ago in Asia, Europe and North America, was less than 20 inches long and stood less than 10 inches tall at the shoulder. This tiny horse was preyed on by early dog and cat like predators and even giant carnivorous birds!

greggy

[melanie]

Olivia Binfield and lucy the Snake poem Britains Got Talent 2011


This is really really worth watching .....


cool bananas ... greg

Thanks Greggy for this, and all your other posts, it just goes to show how free, relaxed, and mostly fearless children really are.

[melanie]

And God created the dinosaur who ruled the earth



Then God destroyed the dinosaur - and created hairless apes to rule the world - for awhile.