IamMoose

What are hyenas then?

Oolon Colluphid

They’re cats :rolling:

Well, sort of.

According to the Tree of Life, the Hyaenidae (hyaenas and the aardwolf) are in the Superfamily Feliformia, along with the Felidae (cats), Viverridae (civets, linsangs, genets, etc), the Herpestidae (mongooses, meerkats and my favourite animal, the fossa), and the Nandiniidae (African palm civets).

Admittedly, they don’t look much like cats, but then again, whales don’t look much like ungulates...

The best thing about fossas is that they are very cat-like. The only the stiff tail gives the mongoose game away, really (at least in overall appearance). But they are actually a variation on the Herpestid or Viverrid theme. (Depending on whom you consult, they could be in either family. I guess nobody's done a genetic comparison on them.) Anyway, they're fab. They eat lemurs, you know.

Edited to add: here's a bit more about hyaenas. But beware, it might make your eyes water. www.freewebs.com/oolon/SMOGGM.htm#hyaena

IamMoose

If I follow that link will i get to a detailed description of how they give birth? cos if so I have already seen it and think I will give it a miss second time around

diGriz

I am not trolling.

There is no doubt in my mind that we will eventually lose species like the panda, tiger, rhino and the cheeta and yes that is sad. I also have no doubt that new animals will come in to fill those niches as nature has always done. Animals will adapt to the new environment that we have provided for them and they will flourish and diversify. How will this mass extinction be any different from the previous ones the earth has seen?

Now i'm certainly not saying we should go out and just start arbitrarily killing species because we can. There are obviously ways we could better treat nature. Where is the happy median between humans being able to colonize the earth and preserving nature?

DMB

Hope you enjoy sharing the earth with rats, mosquitoes and bedbugs.

I only saw a bit of the programme, but did catch the panda bit and I gathered that this was the first time the peeing behaviour had been filmed. I found it astonishing. Pandas on the whole look clumsy and unathletic, but this was quite a difficult thing to do. The animal was standing on his front paws, ratcheting his way up the tree with one back paw, while the rest of his rear end swung free. Then in this strange position he peed onto the tree trunk.

IamMoose

The thing is, and i am not trying to lower the tone here or anything, but surely he could have peed higher just standing normally?

Oolon Colluphid

That, of course, is the problem. Most species are becoming extinct because of habitat destruction and degradation... and therefore new species will not come in to fill the niches, because the niches just ain't there any more.

Sure, species have always gone extinct: to the first approximation, all species that have ever existed are extinct. But what we’ve got now is another mass extinction to riva the previous great ones. Only this time the environment won’t recover... at least, not until humans aren’t around, because it's us that are destroying the ecosystems.

Suppose the big cats become extinct. It happened to their approximate equivalents, the dromaeosaurs. The difference now is that nothing is going to be able to fill the large ambush predator niche, because there will be little in the way of large prey to ambush, since there’ll be too few places where there’s enough habitat for large prey to be.

When you hear about 'habitat destruction', what it means is niche destruction.

diGriz

Squirrles, rats, mice, pigeons, cockroaches, racoons etc, they might not be the most interesting of animals, but they have moved in where humans live. They seem very static and unchanging, but that is because a human lifespan isn't even an eyeblink in geological time. Given a few centuries or millenia these animals will diversify and other animals will move in as well.

Nic Tamzek

Humans have already colonized the earth, we're already way, way past the happy medium. Right now we're in the position of trying desperately to save what's left. Fatalist attitudes like "we will eventually lose species like the panda, tiger, rhino and the cheeta and yes that is sad" are not objective realism, they are self-fulfilling prophecies designed to provide someone an excuse for not getting up off their tush and doing something about it. Aggressive conservation efforts have already stabilized numerous species that, if the trends of the last few decades had continued, would already be extinct. This includes the black rhino, I believe.

Once a species goes extinct, there's no getting it back except in a few very special cases. In any case, it's much more important to save the whole ecosystem in question, not just have a few Pandas in a zoo. Sure, evolution will eventually produce new forms, but (a) they won't evolve if the habitat has been completely obliterated, and (b) this will take a million years or more, which is rather longer than your grandchildren will live. When your grandchildren ask you about pandas, would it be better to say, "Humans figured out how to save them and their habitat, let's go to China and see one", or "Well, no one really gave a rip, so they're extinct for all time. Tough luck."

The whole human civilization-versus-species preservation dichotomy is obviously false anyway. Like I said, go read some Aldo Leopold. Or E.O. Wilson. It's not like no one has ever thought about this before.

This concludes the sermon...

Worldtraveller

:notworthy Preach it brutha!! :notworthy

Also, Daniel Quinn's books are a good read that touch on this subject.

Cheers,
Lane