A community about the variety of life on Earth at all levels; including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.
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Biodiversity is a term used to describe the enormous variety of life on Earth. It can be used more specifically to refer to all of the species in one region or ecosystem. Biodiversity refers to every living thing, including plants, bacteria, animals, and humans. Scientists have estimated that there are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals in existence. However, only around 1.2 million species have been identified and described so far, most of which are insects. This means that millions of other organisms remain a complete mystery.
Over generations, all of the species that are currently alive today have evolved unique traits that make them distinct from other species. These differences are what scientists use to tell one species from another. Organisms that have evolved to be so different from one another that they can no longer reproduce with each other are considered different species. All organisms that can reproduce with each other fall into one species. Read more...
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This is great news! Isn't this the place where they are trying to eradicate non-native species like rats? I remember seeing a Tom Scott video about that.
Edit: Found it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcp1BfPUeOc
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The fluffy and flightless kiwi is one of the most vulnerable birds in New Zealand and conservationists believe it has been absent from the capital for generations.
In November 2022, 11 kiwi were released into a vast sweep of hilly farmland in Makara, 25 minutes west of Wellington’s centre.
Ward said the trapping network was just as important as the support network behind the project, which includes the Makara community, the iwi (tribe) who gifted the birds, the iwi mana whenua (tribe with territorial rights over the region) which is now kaitiaki, or guardian, of the kiwi, and the landowners.
The project chose not to name the two-week old chicks, Ward said, nor would it get into the habit of providing updates on individual kiwi because it was committed to growing a large wild population.
Just a quarter of the kiwi released into the area are being monitored, meaning there was a high possibility more chicks could be discovered, Ward said.
The coming months are vitally important as they grow and put on weight to the point that they can fend off stoats with their big claws.”
The original article contains 450 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Those are some cute chicks
Can someone ELI5 why everyone knows the Kiwi even though there are other species going extinct every day? Is it special?