Pyro (fire). Cepahlus (head). Dubius (Doubtful). No one has seen the vermilion flycatcher called Pyrocephalus dubius on the island of San Cristóbal in the Galápagos since 1987. Its existence is doubtful. Though only recently discovered, the species is already believed to be extinct.
The tiny vermilion flycatcher seems to have gone the way of the Neandertals. There’s speculation about causes. Rats introduced to the island by humans might have eaten the birds’ eggs. No one knows for sure, but we might suspect that humans practice the arithmetic of subtraction: Wherever we’ve been, we’ve disrupted whatever preceded us.
What if, just what if, some 200,000 years ago some Neandertal scientists—I know, no Neandert(h)al was a scientist as we define scientist—discovered Homo sapiens only to discover within decades or a millennia or two that the new species had disappeared “shortly” after its discovery? Of course, that didn’t happen. In fact, we Homo sapiens types discovered Neandertals only to find that a short time later they became extinct.
We can really change a place, can’t we? Humanity seems to be as effective an agent of extinction as an incoming fiery bolide seems indubitably to have hastened the demise of the dinosaurs.
The tiny vermilion flycatcher seems to have gone the way of the Neandertals. There’s speculation about causes. Rats introduced to the island by humans might have eaten the birds’ eggs. No one knows for sure, but we might suspect that humans practice the arithmetic of subtraction: Wherever we’ve been, we’ve disrupted whatever preceded us.
What if, just what if, some 200,000 years ago some Neandertal scientists—I know, no Neandert(h)al was a scientist as we define scientist—discovered Homo sapiens only to discover within decades or a millennia or two that the new species had disappeared “shortly” after its discovery? Of course, that didn’t happen. In fact, we Homo sapiens types discovered Neandertals only to find that a short time later they became extinct.
We can really change a place, can’t we? Humanity seems to be as effective an agent of extinction as an incoming fiery bolide seems indubitably to have hastened the demise of the dinosaurs.
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