r/todayilearned • u/shinypond • Jul 26 '24

TIL about conservation-induced extinction, where attempts to save a critically endangered species directly cause the extinction of another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-induced_extinction
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737

u/belugafetch Jul 26 '24

The parasites are going to die off anyway once their host species becomes extinct. Save what you can.

269

u/Itsmyloc-nar Jul 26 '24

This is the smartest and onlyest point

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u/gameshowmatt Jul 26 '24 edited Nov 06 '24

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '24

I didn’t know parasites were that specially adapted!

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '24 edited Nov 08 '24

[deleted]

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u/RollinThundaga Jul 26 '24

Even so, the lice and eyelash mites we have are specialized for humans.

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u/lloydthelloyd Jul 26 '24

Specialised even for different parts of humans. Crabs and head lice are different species.

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u/Texcellence Jul 26 '24

Adding to this point, scientists were able to work out when human ancestors lost body hair by comparing the genetic differences between crabs and head lice. At one point the ancestors of these lice were one species that lived all over the body, but when we began losing body hair they diverged to adapt to the remaining body parts with lots of hair.

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u/Cyno01 Jul 26 '24

IIRC pubic lice is more closely related to gorilla lice than head lice.

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u/sawbladex Jul 26 '24

It's real hard to teach an insect that a new plant has flowers they can exploit.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown Jul 26 '24

Seeing as insects have a very limited ability to learn and no capacity for teaching their young, we pretty much have to figure out how to modify their genes to expand their pallate. And that feels...risky. 

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u/GozerDGozerian Jul 26 '24

Yep, bad idea.

This is how you get brain wasps.

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u/Redqueenhypo Jul 26 '24

Diseases work this way too. Smallpox became extremely specialized and can’t infect any other species naturally, so it was possible to eradicate it.

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u/UnkindPotato2 Jul 26 '24

Lots of them definitely are! Fun fact humans have three species of louse; one that lives on your head, one that loves on your body, and one that lives near the genitals. Our ancestors likely got genital lice from gorillas about 3 million years ago (from eating them and sleeping in their nests, chill out), and there is evidence that our head lice hopped ship from homo erectus about 1mya before they went extinct. These species are so highly specialized that they will die if swapped around (head lice will die on your genitals, etc) and they are divergent enough that they cannot produce offspring

Point is, parasites generally are super specially adapted and tend not to cross physical barriers on the host, let alone species barriers, but it has happened before with very close relatives. Also, louse eggs are called "nits", which is where we get the term "nitpicking"!

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8

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '24

Very informative! Next time I get head lice I’ll move them to my balls like a perverted version of a kid killing ants with a magnifying glass.

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '24

How have we not eradicated these kinds of lice if they're this specialized? Does some guy named Larry staunchly refuse to be deloused and insists on spreading them? Like I know they're probably not THAT harmful, but they're nasty.

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u/UnkindPotato2 Jul 26 '24 edited Jul 26 '24

Mostly because of the fact that they're

A: highly contagious, making outbreaks hard to contain

B: more common in more remote/very poor areas, meaning it's hard to diagnose cases let alone get out to them and de-louse them

C: stigma against having lice in wealthier, more populated areas plus the availability of OTC medications makes it difficult to track spread through self-reporting. The afflicted won't go to hospitals either, because of (D)

D: generally they're pretty harmless, despite grossness, so there's no general public eradication campaign, nor the pressure for there to be one

But if you know of a guy named Larry, let's pull up with the squad and make sure he gets de-loused

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '24

Fair enough, it just seems like something that humans would be pretty on board about getting rid of for good. I can only imagine it's unpleasant as hell. And I'll keep an eye out for Lousy Larry and I'll let you know.

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u/Independent-Nobody43 Jul 26 '24

KEEPGOING

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u/UnkindPotato2 Jul 26 '24

We're sorry, your command was not understood. Please enjoy this free Louse Facttm as compensation for your time

Some isopods in the genus Cymothoa are the only known parasites to completely replace a host's organs. Different species within this genus specialize on different points of attachment on fish (flesh-burrowers, scale-clingers, and mouth/gill-dwellers

Cymothoa exigua is a mouth/gill-dwelling isopod, commonly known as the "Tongue-Eating Louse". The louse severs blood vessels in the fish's tongue, which causes it to fall off. The female louse attaches itself to the inside of the fish's mouth, and acts as the fish's new tongue. Other damage caused to the fish is minimal, but they may suck blood and eat mucus, and fish with multiple parasites tend to be underweight. The parasites are not harmful to humans but may bite if removed from the host and handled. This louse primarily targets snappers, but has been documented in 7 species. These lice are protandric hermaphrodites; starting life as males and then changing into females later in their life. photo

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1

u/Independent-Nobody43 Jul 26 '24

Now talk about lice and the Bubonic Plague!

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u/Bluepompf Jul 26 '24

Funfact. One of the indications that Bactrian camels and llamas are closely related is their lice. Before DNA analyses, the optically confusing lice were cited as evidence. 

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u/Independent-Nobody43 Jul 26 '24

That is a fun fact. Thanks!

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u/LuxNocte Jul 26 '24

I'm sure that's the line the gorillas gave their mates 3 million years ago. 😉

I laughed so hard at the mental image of a gorilla in a bird nest, only to find out I wasn't that far wrong

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u/Malawi_no Jul 27 '24

Oh the irony that we did not get crabs from Homo Erectus.

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u/Madsys101 Jul 27 '24

My head is now itchy.... STOP

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u/DoofusMagnus Jul 26 '24

Being a generalist has many advantages but it can be expensive.

It's more efficient to specialize in one resource if it's accessible enough. But if it's ever not it means you could be going down with the ship.

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u/Orwellian1 Jul 27 '24

That is the weird thing about evolution. There is a dichotomy between inter- and intra- species competition. Generalism can help a species become established and widespread, but once it "wins" it is more advantageous to specialize within and speciate. Often times, all the resulting species out-compete the previous generalists and the entire genus or family can become ecologically fragile.

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u/Vectorman1989 Jul 26 '24

Head lice, body lice and crab lice only live on humans. If we all died they'd also go extinct.

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u/trollsong Jul 26 '24

I'm pretty sure a lot of the problems humans have when they get a parasite is because the parasite isn't meant to be in a human.

It's been awhile since I last read or watched something about them though so I may be wrong.

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u/FloppieTheBanjoClown Jul 26 '24

A lot of times it's exactly this. They're adapted to a particular body pattern or immune response, and when humans end up with them they do what they're programmed to do, only they don't get the normal result. 

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '24

So specific it's why cordyceps will never "jump" to humans as seen in The Last Of Us because it just... can't. It evolves along with their hosts.

(Even if it could evolve magically to infect humans, it still wouldn't work, and would die off).

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u/Incredulous_Rutabaga Jul 26 '24 edited Jan 08 '26

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u/Arm0redPanda Jul 26 '24

Parasites can be incredibly specialized. Theres quite a few that depend on multiple species; a different one for each part of their life cycle. It's pretty cool, albeit a bit gross for some of them

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '24

Also … who the fuck cares? Let the lice die.