The Biology, Agriculture, and Paleontology thread

Well, the suicide attempt seems to be truth in television, at least, and if they didn't die, that seems to be realistic too, so I don't think it would be artistic license, then, unless they didn't get sick at all.

Did the movie match what is described in the article I linked?

Edited by Redmess on Dec 17th 2023 at 11:13:18 AM

I wouldn't know their symptoms if any, I was just going off what was on the work page, which doesn't have anything on symptoms. No new trope for the page then, by my reckoning. Thanks!

Another giant titanosaur just came out.

Guardian: The European Commission has proposed lowering the wolf's conservation status from "strictly protected" to "protected".

von den Leyer rejecting scientific consensus because of rich people problems, what a fucking waste.

It's like...yeah, it sucks that her pony died like that, but I think the question with her and the farmers whining about this stuff is how good their precautions are. Wolves are smart, but they're not that smart. If you know what you're doing, it's relatively easy to make a wolf-proof enclosure.

We also like, really need wolves to be in their natural habitats. The only reason it didn't spiral out of control when the British got rid of them was because the British were fucking obsessed with hunting and basically took over the job. (There's a theory that the reason the wolves were moving in on herds and farms so much before they got wiped out was because the hunting was so crazy that the wolves barely had any food in the wild areas.)

Hmm. This summer I visited a agriculture fair in Switzerland and there were a lot of posters arguing that keeping wolves away is not that easy.

I did say relatively simple.

I know it's not easy, but it's also legitimately a thing that a lot of people are really bad at identifying the right way to handle it.

Like, I lived in Switzerland for a couple of years, I saw what the fences look like in the places where wolves aren't an issue. They weren't much to speak of. I also know farmers, and if you don't make it super clear what's needed, they'll just assume that one size fits all works for certain types of animals.

Half of the wolf issues are also just feral dogs, which are FAR less scared of going near settlements. Or even free-range yet underfed dogs.

Farmers are also really prone to blaming wolves for everything. Get a fucking mastiff, and take care of your lifestock, rather than having them as a source of money via public founding.

Creating enclosures that are protected from wolves is very much doable.

It is also time-consuming for people whose jobs already are both low on revenue and high on daily worktime.

The "it's paid for" that is used against shepherds to discredit them is a bit dishonest as feeding and caring for dogs or installing/removing fences every day adds to their workload with no benefit.

It is a complex issue that would require agricultural reforms. Wolves are just an easy to advertise issue that allows some powerful lobbies to completely dodge other important questions.

Edited by Bexlerfu on Dec 23rd 2023 at 1:33:24 PM

I'm not sure I can engage with the practical logistics; I'm a little distracted by how much "my pony died so I want to shoot an endangered species" sounds like a writer's flimsy motivation for a redeemable villain.

UVDL using her personal experience with wolves here is be like me saying I'm an expert on gun issues because I touched my grandpa's antique muskets once.

Edited by Bexlerfu on Dec 24th 2023 at 9:18:24 PM

Who is Lidl?

Lidl is a grocery chain.

That too, but they used a female pronoun and from context are actually referring to Ursula von der Leyen

Oops, sorry.

Phone autocorrect, my bad. It is pretty insufferable whenever I type in a language that is not the phone's, like English.

I corrected, meant to type "UVDL".

Edited by Bexlerfu on Dec 24th 2023 at 9:18:05 PM

I mean, did she? The article mentions it, but it doesn't quote her referring to it in any way.

Random musing.

I was listening to a natur education video about how wolves became dogs, and it started off with how similar dogs and wolves are.

I already knew that part and the fact that wolves and dogs (or at least, breeds that are most similar) share like 99% of the DNA. However, the video in question pointed out how they can breed and produce fertile offspring, which I found really interesting.

Not because of the fact they can - I've seen plenty of them in real life - but because I totally forgot about the whole "two animals are same species if they can breed fertile offspring" kind of methodology (there has to be a scholarly name for it, I'm certain).

After all, no matter how similar they might be, humans and bonobos can't produce fertile offspring - and GOD I hope that there hadn't been any attempt - and ligers are infertile.

Edited by dRoy on Mar 20th 2024 at 12:15:23 AM

Slight correction, only male ligers are sterile, females aren't.

...Holy shit, are you serious? Female ligers are fertile...?!

Daaaaaaamn, I needed to know that!

It's also pretty notable. Horses and donkeys split from a common ancestor around 2 million years ago, yet all mules are sterile (though there are anecdotes of rare fertile females). While lions and tigers split around 4 million years ago yet the females can still reproduce.

And let's not forget that modern humans are a hybrid of sorts. We've all got a bit of Neanderthal in us.

The issue with interspecific hybrids is that most people use mules as a reference. However, Equus (that's it, horses, asses and zebras) are VERY weird in terms of specific genetic quirks. Female mules are often fertile and will have foals with horses... and said foals will have NO donkey genes whatsoever.

Still, the Mayr definition of species (populations that would be able to have fertile offspring between themselves) is a very faulty one. It hinges on sexual reproduction to begin with.

Anyway, for example, Canis dogs are incredibly interfertile. Coyotes and grey wolves split from each other a million years ago, yet North American wolves and coyotes form a species complex, where every living coyote has wolf ancestry, every NA wolf has coyote ancestry, AND the red wolf exists as an intermediate, self-sustaining third species (which is often met with denial because "hybrids are bad" and "keep species purity" clashes with it being quite endangered). Dogs are domestic wolves, yeah, originating from the same grey wolf branch that includes singing dogs and dingos.

Panthera cats are also weird with their entire shtick of only females being fertile, compared to other cats. We have several domestic cat breeds that originate from hybridation with separate GENERA; savannah cats originate from serval hybridization, while Bengal cats originate from leopard cat hybridization. And, of course, domestic cats are the same species as wildcats, but wildcats are often considered separate species... and yet, domestic cats originate from African wildcats, but are throughly interfertile with European wildcats.

And oh boy, the tangle llamas and alpacas are, versus guanacos and vicuñas, and what the hell alpacas actually are.

And oh boy fowl; pretty much the only unviable cross among gamefowl is chicken x turkey. Mallards are a problematic invasive species because they will hybridize other species into assimilation.

And OH BOY plants. Just take a look at how complex hybrid ancestry gets in such familiar stuff:

The definition of species is wonky and mostly a human intellectual construct, but there also are cases where the first generation of hybrids is fertile, but their descendants are not, which is caused by outbreeding depression.

Species is basically the box von Linné decided to use as a reference, and everybody has followed suit since then, even if it is absolutely not adequate when discussing certain organisms such as bacteria.

I'd add that it wastes a ton of time in the academic field because publishing an article identifying a new species (or explaining why two species are actually the same, or why one species should be split) is the scientific equivalent of having a vanity plate on your car - you get to name a new species, after all. Case in point: the debate about the number of elephant species in Africa.

It is infinitely more interesting to look at it from an ecosystemic or evolutionary point of view than to split hairs discussing whether organism A should be named Whateverius whataboutis instead of Whateverius whatisthat.