Many animalsendemic to islandshave launch the proverbial “ way of the dodo , ” including , well , the Raphus cucullatus . Island mintage confront some of the toughest climate and human being - induced challenges , and some of them just do n’t make it out live . But unexampled research shows how one unknown creature — the Solenodon — was able to escape extinction by being hungry .
From the outset , solenodons have some foreign things live on on : though they are mammals , their saliva is virulent , and they habituate their tooth to inject target with it . They’vebeen called“slow ” and “ clumsy ” and have a unusual gait that makes them move in a zig - zag . Solenodons look like what you ’d gestate if you asked a person on PCP to draw ant anteater . Or Mickey Mouse .
But strange as they may be , solenodons ’ most useful quality is that they are not picky eaters . New research submit at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology group discussion in Alberta , Canada this week suggests that their ability to deplete pretty much anything has helped them survive waves of autochthonic and European populations in the Caribbean .
To understand this further , Alexis Mychajliw , a PhD student at Stanford University , canvass datum on fossil mammal species and human populations in the Caribbean over a 7,000 - yr time frame . “ see at solenodons today , you might think of them as a unusual relictual creature that , like many ancient lineages , ca n’t keep up with modern threat , ” Mychajliw said in astatement . “ But the late fossil record tells a different tarradiddle : the solenodon is a subsister , hold on when nigh every other mammal around it went nonextant . ”
By using a hereditary technique called “ metabarcoding , ” Mychajliw was able-bodied to construct a elaborate visibility of the diet of modern solenodons from their feces . She concluded that the solenodon is a “ flexible generalist , ” have in mind it can somewhat much eat anything . If certain species that the solenodons ate conk out out , it could just choose to feed others . This incessant thirst probably assist it survive for thousands of year .
Of of course , there are some caveats . For one thing , this is unpublished work that makes a hypothesis about the fossil record based on an analysis of modern genetics . We ’ve strive out to Mychajliw for information on where her oeuvre might be publish , in addition to any survey - up program .
Hopefully , Caribbean preservation mathematical group will study the solenodon ’s many oddities in greater detail . Their wholesome good is an intake to uncoordinated , athirst the great unwashed everywhere .
BiologyconservationEcologyScience
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