August 26, 2019

In New Zealand, a newly identified species of ancient giant penguin—or “monster” penguin as dubbed by the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch—has added to the southwest Pacific island nation’s roster of extinct oversized animals. The leg and foot bones of Crossvallia waiparensis, a 5-foot, 3-inch (1.6-meter) tall, 180-pound (80-kilogram) penguin, were found in Waipara, North Canterbury, on New Zealand’s South Island.

This illustration shows the ancient giant penguin Crossvallia waiparensis alongside a modern human. Credit: © Canterbury Museum

The ancient “monster” penguin bones were discovered in 2018 at Waipara Greensand, a geological formation that has produced significant penguin fossils before. Researchers from the nearby Canterbury Museum and the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, studied the penguin fossils, and they named C. waiparensis as a new species in the Aug. 12, 2019, issue of Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology.

C. waiparensis, which lived during the Paleocene Epoch between 66 million and 56 million years ago, was roughly four times larger than the emperor penguin, the largest of all modern penguins. During the time of C. waiparensis, New Zealand was still attached to Australia, which was once connected to Antarctica. A related prehistoric giant penguin, Crossvallia unienwillia, was discovered in Antarctica’s Cross Valley in 2000. The leg bones of both giant penguins suggest their feet were more adapted for swimming than those of modern penguins, and they may not have stood upright as modern penguins do.

Emperor penguins, seen here in Antarctica, are the largest living penguins. They stand about 3 feet (1 meter) tall and weigh as much as 100 pounds (45 kilograms). (Credit: © Shutterstock)

Prior to the discovery of C. waiparensis, New Zealand’s legacy of ancient giant critters already included the world’s largest parrot (Heracles inexpectatus), a massive eagle (Hieraaetus moorei), a dog-sized burrowing bat (Vulcanops jennyworthyae), the more than 6-foot (2-meter) tall moa, and other giant penguins.

August 16, 2019

Throughout 2019, a controversial movement known as the Extinction Rebellion has been making headlines around the world. The Extinction Rebellion is an international movement that advocates nonviolent civil disobedience (see the detailed explanation below) to pressure governments into taking action on climate change and the mass extinction of animal species. The movement, spurred by the negative effects of global warming and habitat loss, began in the United Kingdom in 2018, and it has since spread to Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, the United States, and other countries. The stated goal of the group is to preserve Earth for all living things.

Extinction Rebellion activists gather before the prime minister’s office in London, England, on March 9, 2019. Credit: © Sandor Szmutko, Shutterstock

In its own words, the Extinction Rebellion (sometimes referred to as XR) is attempting “to halt mass extinction and minimize the risk of social collapse.” The group wants governments to work to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) reports that animal populations have decreased by 58 percent in the last 50 years, mainly due to habitat loss. The widespread loss of animals has a corresponding detrimental effect on human populations. And carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels are the leading causes of global warming. The XR also asks individual citizens to lead healthier and environmentally responsible lives.

The Extinction Rebellion began in October 2018, when climate activists gathered for a “Declaration of Rebellion” in London’s Parliament Square. The movement quickly grew and spread to other parts of the world where existing climate action groups gathered under the circled hourglass extinction symbol banner. Major Extinction Rebellion protests have blocked bridges, roads, and public transportation, and they have disrupted government, media, and petroleum company offices. Because their actions are often unlawful, the group is somewhat controversial, and many XR activists have been arrested.

Credit: © Extinction Rebellion

Civil disobedience is the deliberate and public refusal to obey a law. Some people use civil disobedience as a form of protest to attract attention to what they consider unjust or unconstitutional laws or policies. They hope their actions will move other people to correct the injustices. Other people regard civil disobedience as a matter of individual religious or moral conviction. They refuse to obey laws that they believe violate their personal principles.

Throughout history, there has been widespread disagreement concerning the use of civil disobedience in a society based on law and order. Some people claim that citizens are obligated to disobey laws they consider unjust, for example laws segregating the races. They say that such lawbreaking may be the best way to test the constitutionality of a law. Some defend the use of civil disobedience by pointing to laws widely considered unjust or immoral, such as Nazi Germany’s laws calling for extermination of Jews and other groups. Other people claim that it is never right to break a law deliberately. They argue that defiance of any law leads to contempt for other laws. Any act of civil disobedience, they believe, weakens society and may lead to violence and anarchy (the absence of government or law).

Famous practitioners of civil disobedience include the writer Henry David Thoreau, the suffragist Susan B. Anthony, and Mohandas K. Gandhi of India. In the United States, during the 1950′s and 1960′s, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights workers deliberately violated Southern segregation laws as a means of fighting racial injustice. Many opponents of the Vietnam War (1957-1975) committed various illegal acts in attempts to change U.S. policy. Some refused to pay their taxes. Others refused to register for the draft. During the 1980′s, nonviolent protests were directed at the repressive racial policy of apartheid (segregation) of the minority white government in South Africa.

April 27, 2016

In this illustration, a group of dinosaurs and flying reptiles flee a vast fire. Such an event, connected to the eruption of a volcano, could have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, some 65 million years ago. Credit: © Mark Garlick, Photo Researchers

Dinosaurs reigned supreme on Earth for tens of millions of years. Other animals, such as mammals, lived in the shadows, eking out an existence among giant plant-eaters and ferocious predators. Dinosaurs were so dominant that, if it hadn’t been for some extremely bad luck 65 million years ago in the form of a giant asteroid, they might still populate Earth today. Right? Maybe, maybe not.

A recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences casts doubt on this picture of dinosaur supremacy. Paleontologists Manabu Sakamoto and Chris Venditti of the University of Reading and Michael Benton of the University of Bristol analyzed parts of the dinosaur family tree over time. They compared speciation (spee see AYE shun) events to extinction events. Speciation is when one species evolves from another—for example, human beings, chimpanzees, and gorillas evolved from a common ancestor that lived between 4 million and 10 million years ago. That split that occurred was a speciation event. Sakamoto, Venditti, and Benton made comparisons of speciation and extinction events within five groups of dinosaurs: meat-eating theropods, long-necked sauropods, horned ceratopsians, duck-billed hadrosaurs, and other plant-eating dinosaurs.

The scientists found that the rate of extinction began to exceed the rate of speciation for theropods, sauropods, and other plant-eating dinosaurs 50 million years before the asteroid hit. This means that dinosaur species in these groups were going extinct faster than new species evolved to take their place as much as 115 million years ago, in the middle of the Cretaceous Period.

Does this mean that dinosaurs were already on their way out, and a huge rock from space only hastened their demise? Absolutely not! While the dinosaurs may have been experiencing a downturn in diversity, this study does not indicate that they were at death’s door. Whether dinosaurs gradually declined before their extinction has been a hotly-debated topic in paleontology for many years. In fact, long before the Chicxulub impact crater (created by an asteroid that struck Earth 65 million years ago) was discovered, most paleontologists thought the dinosaurs had slowly died out and that there was no mass extinction. The question of dinosaur decline is very complicated and touches on such paleontology issues as the completeness of the fossil record. Because of many differences in the layers of Earth, some animals in some periods have nearly complete fossil records, while others from other periods may have few or no fossils. This study will not be the last word on the matter.

The study does, however, highlight a few important things about dinosaur diversity and extinction. First, the extinction of the dinosaurs was a complex event. The environment of the Late Cretaceous was challenging. Enormous volcanoes called the Deccan Traps raged in what is now India. The climate was getting colder. Drifting continents and changing sea levels were fragmenting land habitats, making it more difficult for land-dwelling dinosaurs to move from place to place. These factors may have affected the group’s species diversity.

Second, the study highlights how diverse dinosaurs were. There are about 600 named dinosaur species, and scientists estimate that another 600 or more remain to be discovered. Some of these species may have lived in regions where fossilization rarely occurs (such as mountain environments) and thus will never be found. Some paleontologists involved in assessing dinosaur diversity point out that the astonishing diversification that occurred in the Jurassic Period could never have lasted forever, particularly in the challenging environment of the Late Cretaceous.

Finally, the study holds great relevance for us today. If the results are borne out by future analyses, it would suggest that a modest loss of species diversity may have made the dinosaurs more susceptible to random cataclysmic events such as the Chicxulub asteroid. Today, many species are going extinct, and the planet is warming rapidly. The loss of diversity might make today’s ecosystems more susceptible to collapse from random events such as volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts. Like the dinosaurs, humans might have built their global dominance on an unstable foundation. Unlike the dinosaurs, however, we have the ability to make changes to strengthen ecosystems and reduce global warming, giving us more of a fighting chance against extinction.

Other World Book articles

• Drilling for Answers (March 9, 2016) – Behind the Headlines article
• Geology (2007) – A Back in Time Article
• Global warming

October 20, 2014

The number of northern white rhinoceroses remaining on Earth has fallen to just six with the death of Suni, a 34-year-old male that lived at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Even worse, Suni was one of only two breeding males. The first northern white rhino born in captivity, Suni was found dead in his boma (fenced corral) on Friday. Officials at the reserve said Suni was not a victim of poaching for his horn and ordered a necropsy. The other breeding male as well as two females still live at Ol Pejeta. Another southern white rhino is housed at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic; two of the rhinos live at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. No northern white rhinos are known to live in the wild now.

The northern white rhino is one of two subspecies of white rhino, the largest of all rhinoceroses. The other subspecies is the southern white rhino. The white rhino stands about 5 feet 8 inches (1.7 meters) tall. In some cases, it may be over 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall and 15 feet (4.6 meters) long. It weighs about 31/2 tons (3.2 metric tons).

The white rhinoceros is the largest kind of rhinoceros. There are two subspecies of white rhinoceros, the northern white rhino and the southern white rhino. (Clem Haagner, Bruce Coleman Inc.)

Suni, who was born at the Dvur Kralove Zoo, and three other rhinos were moved to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in 2009 as part of a program called “Last Chance to Survive.” Officials had hoped that the natural conditions in Kenya would improve the rhinos’ chances of breeding and so save the subspecies from extinction. Suni had mated twice with one of the females, but the two did not produce offspring.

Thousands of northern white rhinos once roamed parts of East and Central Africa south of the Sahara. The animal’s situation grew dire in the 1970′s and 1980′s, as poaching for rhino horn cut the wild population, from about 500 to only 15. Many Asian people believe the powdered horn of the rhinoceros has healing qualities and can be used to cure lung and chest illnesses. Some people believe the horn has magical powers. Asian people also use the skin, blood, and urine of rhinoceroses to cure illnesses. Rhino horn now sells for more than gold or platinum. In a statement on Suni’s death, Ol Pejeta officials said, “the species now stands at the brink of complete extinction, a sorry testament to the greed of the human race.”

Additional World Book articles:

• Endangered species
• International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

March 26, 2013

Massive volcanic eruptions some 200 million years ago likely caused the extermination of half of all species (kinds of living things) on Earth. A new study recently published in the journal Science appears to confirm that a series of massive volcanic eruptions occurred very close to the time of the End-Triassic Extinction. The End-Triassic Extinction was a widespread die-off of land and sea species, which allowed for the rise of the dinosaurs.

The gigantic eruptions occurred across an area that now stretches from Nova Scotia to Morocco, when the land on Earth was one giant continent called Pangaea. The volcanoes released huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that caused global warming and other atmospheric changes. Many species of plants and animals would not have survived this dramatic shift in the chemical makeup of the atmosphere and in temperature.

Earth underwent massive volcanic eruptions some 200 million years ago. (AP/Wide World)

The authors of the new study have dated the volcanic eruptions to 201.5 million years ago, close to the time of the End-Triassic Extinction. Carnegie Tech geologist Terrance Blackburn and his colleagues were able to accurately gauge the time by studying ancient lava flows in modern-day New Jersey, Nova Scotia, and Morocco. They found spores and pollen as well as plant and animal fossils from the Triassic Era in sediment layers underneath the lava flows, but not in layers above them. This suggests that the widespread eruptions and the massive die-off were interconnected.

Pangaea (WORLD BOOK map; based on Paleogeographic Atlas Project data from the University of Chicago)

Geologist Paul Renne, of the Berkeley Geochronology Center, noted that the findings are “a nice confirmation of what we and others have been aware of for some time. The main difference is the dating that they used is more precise than our results were.”

Additional World Book articles:

• The Great Dying (a special report)
• What Has Caused Mass Extinctions? (a special report)

March 22, 2013

Scientists at the 44th Lunar and Planertary Science Conference (LPSC) held this week announced that the object that hit Earth 65 million years ago, leading to massive extinctions of species across the planet, may have been smaller than previously believed. Scientists have long thought that the object that impacted Earth was a huge, relatively slow-moving asteroid. This belief was based in part upon the stratum (layer) of Earth discovered by the American physicist Luis Alvarez and and his son, geologist Walter Alvarez. This layer, called the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary (at one time called the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K-T boundary), contains a large amount of the chemical element iridium (Ir). The element is very rare in Earth’s crust but is common in such space bodies as asteroids and meteorites.

Instead of a large asteroid, as shown below, some scientists now believe a much smaller comet, like the one shown above, led to the extinction event that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous Period. (Lick Observatory)

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The iridium layer was not the only evidence that led scientists to think a large asteroid had struck Earth. There is also evidence of the impact. The Chicxulub crater in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, is more than 112 miles (180 kilometers) in diameter and dates to the same geologic time period as the iridium layer; most scientists think the object that caused this crater is the object that spread a layer of iridium over the Earth and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other animals and plants. Based on the level of iridium deposited and the size of the crater, scientists thought that only a large asteroid could have caused such an event.

Professor Jason Moore, a paleoecologist at Dartmouth College, presented findings at the 2013 conference showing that the geochemistry of the Chicxulub crater shows lower iridium levels than originally reported and lower levels than he believes could be created by a body as large as an asteroid. Dr. Moore believes that a body that could leave as little iridium and leave such a huge crater could not be a large asteroid. Moore believes the body that created the crater in Mexico was a small, fast-moving comet.

Comet or asteroid, the effect on the dinosaurs was devastating. Except, of course, for a group evolved from feathered dinosaurs that still does very well on Earth–the vertebrate class Aves, or birds.

Additional World Book articles:

• Cretaceous
• Dinosaur
• Extinction
• Geology (Back In Time)

A team of Russian scientists has grown living plants from a flowering plant that died 32,000 years ago. The plant was a type of narrow-leaf campion. Campions, also called catchflies, are a group of flowering plants that have five petals, often cleft or notched (partly divided at the top). Scientists were able to recover fruits of the campion from a squirrel burrow in Siberia, where they had remained frozen for thousands of years. The fruits were collected by an Arctic ground squirrel, which buried them the way modern squirrels do. In this case, the burrow became covered by earth, and the fruits were preserved in permafrost (permanently frozen soil). Scientists recovered the fruits a few years ago and were able to coax cells within them into growing. These cells grew into clones of the long-dead flowers.

Moss campion (far right) is a type of campion that grows in areas too cold and dry for trees to grow. The campion that Russian scientists were able to clone from a frozen seed was a type of Arctic campion. World Book illustration by Kate Lloyd-Jones, Linden Artists Ltd.

The flowers are by far the oldest plants grown from ancient tissue. The previous record was held by a date palm, which was grown from a seed that was 2,000 years old. Seeds usually do not germinate (sprout) after many years.

The scientists tried unsuccessfully to grow flowers from the campion’s seeds. Instead, the researchers were able to grow cells recovered from the fruit. Many plants can grow from tiny parts of a parent, a form of reproduction known as vegetative propagation. The fruits were preserved by the frozen soil. In fact, the fruits were probably frozen shortly after they were buried, because arctic ground squirrels deliberately dig their burrows near frozen soil. In this way, the soil acts as a freezer.

The research will enable scientists to compare the ancient flowers with their living relatives. This work should help scientists understand how the plant has evolved (changed over many generations). The research also raises the possibility that scientists may be able to grow other plants from tissue that has been frozen in soil. It might even be possible to grow plants that have become extinct.

Additional World Book articles:

• Arctic
• Endangered species
• Earth (History of Earth)