Depression: Western Black Rhino is now Classified as Extinct

Fatal Gonorrhea, setting Orangutan's on fire for oil,and now this. it's been a banner week for mankind,I'll tell ya!

 

This **** is so depressing.

 

Kinda wondering exactly how genetically distinct this animal was. They're just calling it a sub-species. Still sucks they don't at least have some in captivity somewhere.

 

Sad.

 

There are other rhinos but usually when people think of a rhino and picture it in their heads, they're thinking of a black rhino, this is a subspecies of that with some distinct trait.

Subspecies is something of a misnomer here in a way. A species has members that can interbreed with one another and produce viable offspring. Clearly the Western Black Rhino could interbreed with other rhino subspecies but it had traits that made it quite distinct in many ways from other rhino subspecies.

 

Dammit humans, stop destroying everything!

 

No more rhinos? Or they just out of rhinos?

 

I think what is most depressing is that this article is almost two years old, yet I have no recollection of ever seeing this in the news. It's like who gives a ****, Lindsay Lohan is going to rehab again! God, we are so ****ed.

 

This is sad, but how exactly are we "so ****ed" due to this?

 

It's sad that we know longer have this particular species anymore.

 

I believe his point was we, as a society, care more about Lindsay Lohan's latest stint in rehab than we do about the permanent extinction of an entire sub-species of animals. I agree with him. It is pretty messed up.

 

It could potentially interbreed, but the fact that it was phenotypically distinct implies some sort of isolation (or very strong selection). In general, it probably didn't interbreed with other rhino populations, at least not at any appreciable frequency.

People often ignore this aspect of the modern BSC. A lion and a tiger can produce viable offspring, for example (yes, some ligers and tigons ARE viable, if memory serves), but this never happens in the wild because they don't encounter one another. But where we draw the line between subspecies, breed, population and subpopulation is a bit iffy, sure.

 

In isolation this means very little. As part of a global trend, however, the loss of biodiversity leads to greatly reduced ecosystem stability...upon which humans rely more than they'd like to admit.

 

Just doing recent research i had no idea that Orcas were on the brink of extinction.

 

That's a tad bit misleading. Orcas themselves are not on the brink of extinction but some of the subspecies might be and some of the pods definitely are.

 

Are there no Black Rhinos in captivity? I'm sure this sub-specie was on the verge of extinction for quite some time; so the logical thing to do would be to bring some into captivity…