Exotic Antarctic Species Face Climate Wipeout (Save the giant woodlice & dinnerplate sized spiders!)

Reuters (via San Jose Mercury News) ^ | 9 September 2002 | Jeremy Lovell

[CounterCounterCulture]

LEICESTER, England - Thousands of the world's most exotic species of sea animals from spiders the size of dinner plates to giant woodlice face extinction if Antarctic sea temperatures rise as predicted, a scientist said Monday.

"If the models are correct, we are likely to lose large populations of scallops, giant isopods, bivalve molluscs and giant sea spiders among others," scientist Lloyd Peck of the British Antarctic Survey told reporters.

[chance33_98]

What are they going to do in the future when the sun burns out?

[dighton]

Mmmmmmmm, dinnerplate-sized spiders!

[CounterCounterCulture]

Tasty! And good for you too! A good part of a balanced diet. 4 out of 5 dentists recommend dinner plate sized spiders for patients that eat spiders.

[WindMinstrel]

damn you, dighton! I was looking forward to posting that pic as soon as I saw the title!


I *still* shudder when I think of that article. "Crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside"? Hold me!

[general_re]

Dinner-plate sized? How fortuitous - step right up folks, grab a plate, one spider per customer...

[Always Right]

"If the models are correct....

Well since the models are known not even close to being correct.........next BS article please.

[Snowy]

I suffer from a mild form of arachnaphobia (sp?). Mice, snakes, etc. don't bother me, but spiders do! I think what did it to me was that Brady Bunch episode where they were in Hawaii and that spider crawled on Greg. Getting rid of dinner plate sized spiders would be a good thing. *shiver*

[rdb3]

The "giant sea spider."

[dighton]

Wow, an eight-legged model for Vogue.

[Black Agnes]

You got that right. Don't think that'd feed too many people. It needs to be fed, and right now!

[Revelation 911]

hysterical LOL LOL

[Restin Payce]

Please educate me. How would woodlice grow in the antarctic ? I have seen no trees, bushes, or any other flora there that I could define as "wood". They must have remarkable adaptive powers ?

[Axenolith]

I just got back from a week in the White-Inyo range and have a good observation on this. If the British Association for the Advancement of Science had been around during the Mid Holocene thermal maximum (6-7 thousand years ago, up to 2 degrees warmer) I'm sure they'd have issued a press release lamenting the imminent demise of the Bristlecone Pines.

Unfortunatly the Bristlecone Pines don't play by hysterical interest group rules, and by their ancient dead hulls one can see that during the climatic maximum they adapted and expanded their range in altitude upward to approximately 12,600 feet (currently they max out at approximately 11,400 feet). Now, if a couple of degrees up or down in temperature DIDN'T kill off a species with an incredibly narrow spacial range and a glacial rate of reproduction I'm not really buying that the same "potential" change is going to wreak wholesale slaughter on a bunch of much faster reproducing marine invertibrates that have orders of magnitude greater range.

Remember also that most of those critters close relatives managed to survive the Cretaceous\Triassic and monster Permian\Triassic extinctions. They, or their kith and kin, will be around for a looonnnggg time...

As for "the experts" knowing what they're doing, on an interesting aside an "expert" went out to cut down a Bristlecone for study and accidentally cut down a living tree that turned out to be about 250 years older than the 4,767 year old Methuselah tree...

[Axenolith]

Please educate me. How would woodlice grow in the antarctic ? I have seen no trees, bushes, or any other flora there that I could define as "wood". They must have remarkable adaptive powers ?

When writing scientific articles these guys frequently assume a lowest common denominator for average reader intelligence and then discard most of their learned science for stupid analogies to familiar life forms. The assumption is that most of us rubes are to stupid to know what a sea spider or marine isopod is and don't have the wherewithal to look it up on the web or in a book...

[4Freedom]

In other words, those EIGHT-LEGGED FREAKS!!! are in no immediate danger of extinction. Is that right?

[Axenolith]

Either that, or another nearly identical eight legged freak will step up to the plate to fill the nich.

[SarahW]

oh lord, I feel faint

[null and void]

You BAD!!! LOL!!!