How bout tortoises?
Posted on 05/13/2010 1:42:53 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Global warming could kill off as many as a fifth of the world's lizards by 2080, with potentially devastating consequences for ecosystems around the world, a study released Thursday said.
Researchers who conducted a major survey of lizard populations worldwide said in a study published in the May 14th issue of Science that lizards appear to be especially sensitive to the effects of climate change and are dying off at an alarming rate.
The loss of the lizard populations could wreak havoc with ecosystems in which they are a crucial part of the food chain, since they are important prey for many birds, snakes, and voracious predators of insects.
The biologists in the study ruled out factors other than global warming as being responsible for the rapid decrease in the lizard population.
"We did a lot of work on the ground to validate the model and show that the extinctions are the result of climate change," said Barry Sinervo, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
"None of these are due to habitat loss. These sites are not disturbed in any way, and most of them are in national parks or other protected areas," he said.
The scientists worked up models based on predicted probabilities of local extinction showing the likelihood of species extinction was estimated to be six percent by 2050 and 20 percent by 2080.
Earlier models, they said, have accurately predicted the extinctions of lizard population on five continents around the world.
The researchers said they first noted the disappearance of lizard populations in France and later in Mexico, where 12 percent of lizard populations are thought to have died out.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Now if it was Rinos...
Does this include the reptiles in DC?
Blah-de-blah-blah-blah. Don’t believe it.
and later in Mexico, where 12 percent of lizard populations are thought to have died out.
Are they sure they didn’t just come across the border
looking for a better life?
How bout tortoises?
The cold snap in So. FL killed off a lot of iguanas. Hot/cold - adapt or die, I guess.
Who’s going to tell these “scientists” that the AGW boat sailed a few months ago?
Are there any horny-toads left in Texas? I haven’t seen one in over 30 years. It’s said the fire ants did them in.
No wonder the scaly reptiles running the global warming scam are worried.
Good!
Forgive me, but I’ve seen no evidence of it in Congress.
Yeah, I could kill off a fifth of Lizard...............
There you go. Exactly right.
Are you sure you aren’t confusing lizards with old gizzards? ;-)
I guess they didn’t get the memo that all the global warming stuff was fake.
Lizards are a kind of renewable resource - at least here in Florida.
Sometime in the past, a number of really HUGE lizards got killed off, in a mass extinction, yet somehow life continued here on planet Earth.
Lizards are not essential to most ecologies here, as there are a number of other creatures more than able to fill in the niche that would be vacated by their absence.
Including some degenerate forms of humanity.
Or turkeys with all those dead chickens.
Oh the humanity!!!
No, I have an old gizzard. ;-)
The only lizard native to southern Michigan is a 5 lined skink and I’ve only ever seen about a dozen of them and that has been within the last couple of years.
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