Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Fun Facts About Life (Part 2)

I know you have been anxiously waiting for the second part of this fun facts about life series (I guess this is like the sequel huh). If you missed the first half called Fun Facts About Life (Part 1) well lets see if you can figure out what to do (I'm very helpful I know). Now if you are saying to yourself: "I don't really care about these facts" or "I have nothing to do and somehow I ended up here and I am going to read this post that seems pointless so I actually do something" or even "I haven't been waiting for this post at all..." well I kinda figure that's the case. Enjoy anyway.

If you're not already mad at me for telling you these amazing facts about us then I don't think I've given the book justice. Do you think your different? If you said yes, your wrong. Apparently modern humans, so us, have little genetic variability. Isn't that nice? Fifty five chimps have more diversity than the entire human population. Makes you feel really special doesn't it?

I should note that he did explain why this is. There was something about a really big rift that we haven't explored that might have the answers. I wasn't really paying that close attention.

Want to know the reason we don't know what a dodo looks like? Well that's because after the last dodo died the director of a museum thought the stuffed dodo they had was getting unpleasantly musty so he ordered it to be thrown in a bonfire. Poor dodo (what a funny name). A dodo was the largest member of the pigeon family, in case you were wondering.

One of the last big creatures to go extinct was Steller's sea cow:

 
The assumed look of Steller's sea cow.
http://animalsnomore.com/extinct-animal-Stellers_Sea_Cow.php


It is related to a dugong (that's a fun name too).

A dugong. Pretty cool looking, actually.
http://seapics.com/gallery/Mammalia/Sirenia/Dugongidae/dugong-search.html
 The Carolina parakeet is extinct. This is because whenever they were hunted the would fly up but once the shooting was done they would return to the same place to check on their fallen comrades. The last one died in a zoo and was stuffed...but the zoo lost it.

The Carolina parakeet. So pretty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Parakeet

So apparently for the longest time the people who really liked the world's living things were the ones that killed them. I really hope that isn't true anymore. I really like my cats. I really like cats in general and I really don't want them to go extinct because they are so cool (along with all the other animals out there, don't worry I'm not one of those people that likes one animal and doesn't care what happens to all the other ones.

Well I hope you enjoyed these facts. Maybe you actually learned something! I know I did, although I don't think I learned what my teacher intended for me to learn. Oh well at least I learned something rather than nothing.
~Scooby

2 comments:

  1. ¡Que horrible! Although I suppose there's a very important lesson in here somewhere...hmmmmmm...but very interesting. I like your comment about, "the people who really liked the world's living things, killed them." it's kind of like how we are the first ones to have the opportunity to appreciate the world in all its complexities, and yet we are also the destroyers of them. I wonder what it would be like to not exist anymore...

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