Aussie Firefighters Save World's Only Groves Of Prehistoric Wollemi Pines (npr.org) 17
As wildfires tear through Australia, a specialized team of firefighters has managed to save hidden groves of the Wollemi pine -- a rare prehistoric tree that outlived the dinosaurs. The trees are so rare, they were thought to be extinct until 1994. From a report: It was a lifesaving mission as dramatic as any in the months-long battle against the wildfires that have torn through the Australian bush. But instead of a race to save humans or animals, a specialized team of Australian firefighters was bent on saving invaluable plant life: hidden groves of the Wollemi pine, a prehistoric tree species that has outlived the dinosaurs. Wollemia nobilis peaked in abundance 34 million to 65 million years ago, before a steady decline.
Today, only 200 of the trees exist in their natural environment -- all within the canyons of Wollemi National Park, just 100 miles west of Sydney. The trees are so rare that they were thought to be extinct until 1994. That's the year David Noble, an officer with the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, rappelled into a narrow canyon and came across a grove of large trees he didn't recognize. Noble brought back a few twigs and showed them to biologists and botanists who were similarly stumped. A month later, Noble returned to the grove with scientists. It was then that they realized what they had found: "a tree outside any existing genus of the ancient Araucariaceae family of conifers," the American Scientist explains.
Today, only 200 of the trees exist in their natural environment -- all within the canyons of Wollemi National Park, just 100 miles west of Sydney. The trees are so rare that they were thought to be extinct until 1994. That's the year David Noble, an officer with the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, rappelled into a narrow canyon and came across a grove of large trees he didn't recognize. Noble brought back a few twigs and showed them to biologists and botanists who were similarly stumped. A month later, Noble returned to the grove with scientists. It was then that they realized what they had found: "a tree outside any existing genus of the ancient Araucariaceae family of conifers," the American Scientist explains.
They exist elsewhere, just not in nature. (Score:2)
Re:They exist elsewhere, just not in nature. (Score:4, Funny)
Sure. But these are free range trees, not the cultivated variety.
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Maybe, but they are antibiotic and hormone free. I ain't serving cultivated trees to MY family.
Re: They exist elsewhere, just not in nature. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Debbie Downer.
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Re: They exist elsewhere, just not in nature. (Score:5, Informative)
On the timescale these trees are supposed to have survived, they've experienced average global temperatures up to 14C higher than today [wikipedia.org].
The reason global warming is scary isn't because temperatures are getting hotter than ever. They're not. The Earth has been a lot hotter in the geologic past and survived just fine. It's scary because temperatures are changing faster than ever, perhaps out-pacing the ability of organisms to adapt. e.g. trees can typically move north or south at a rate of only a few meters per decade - the rate at which they can mature enough to spread their seeds. If it takes hundreds of thousands of years for temperatures to rise or fall a few degrees C, that gives trees time to move several hundred km north or south in latitude to stay in their preferred temperature range. But if it rises that much in a few centuries, they'll be stuck in the "wrong" temperature band.
Re: They exist elsewhere, just not in nature. (Score:1)
Why "Invaluable"? (Score:1)
To quote George Carlin, "Let them go gracefully!"
Their mere existence does not make them invaluable. Wherein is their value? Can't make lumber from them... not enough of them to matter for oxygen production... too small to be an ecosystem... Near as I can tell, they're an oddity, and that's all.
Not everything here today needs to be here tomorrow.
Re: Why "Invaluable"? (Score:2)
If you donâ(TM)t have an argument - which you donâ(TM)t so far - log off and go away.
Not wildfires (Score:1)
There are no wildfires in Australia... we have bushfires