Rock Hyrax Urine Offers Clues About Climate Change
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/20/rock-hyrax-urine-offers-clues-about-climate-change/
Picture: This image shows a Rock Hyrax and its urine. The climate change can be shown through the traces of this animals urine. The worse the climate gets, it can be traced through this animals urine.
Summary: The Rock Hyrax is a furry little mammal that is located in Africa and Asia in rock fissures. But recently scientists have found out that in a Rock Hyrax's urine they can find traces of climate change. A Rock Hyrax's habitat is where they found this information because these specific mammals stay close to there home. In there home or burrow they live,eat, and urinate in the same exact spot for centuries. So with this information scientists could find the climate change for the past decades or centuries. The Rock Hyrax urine has been building up in their burrow for approximately 55,000 years. A quote by Brian M. Chase says that Rock Hyrax's pee in the same exact are every single time. You might be wondering how they can find this information with just urine? Well since the Hyrax urinates in the same exact spot for many years the pee starts to thicken and dry and that contains pollen, grass, leaves, and gas bubbles. With this information scientists can get very valuable, useful information.
Opinion/Reflection: This article was very interesting in my opinion. It was also pretty gross to, I could just imagine like 6 inches of dried gooey urine in their house. The things scientists can find from the strangest things are just truly amazing. In my opinion we should further look into animals for climate change and environmental changes in the ecosystem. I personally think that we can find more useful information in those areas. Also I wondered how this specific could be around for this long, are they from prehistoric times?
Questions(3-5)
- Do you think this study will lead to many more studies involving this subject?
- What do you think about this ground-breaking discovery?
- How will this information affect your overall life?
- Do you think there is any other information that can be found about the Rock Hyrax, if so give examples?
My Opinion on The Topic:
ReplyDeleteUm...I am pretty sure this is one of the most...strangest articles I have ever heard of in my entire life. To be fair, I have never heard of Rock Hyrax species until now. What really shocked me is how a Rock Hyrax's urine could contain traces of climate change in the first place. This is mostly because of the fact that from what we have learned so far, climate change could be an issue, similar to the earthworms being contributors to climate change. But seriously, imagine having a species you haven't even heard of with their homes containing inches of dry, sticky urine and the shocker when scientists find traces of climate change in the urine. It's really fascinating when actual urine from an animal species could contain traces of interesting discoveries that we have never seen before. This really makes me wonder: What is a Rock Hyrax, and how could this species still exist in our world today? Until the truth is revealed, I believe that we should discover more information that can predict when traces of climate change have occurred in the urine, and if more traces of climate change will occur. Still, it's very interesting that such urine would contain information that will be useful for the scientists who recently discovered this.
Questions to Consider:
1. How do you believe that the urine of a Rock Hyrax might have traces of climate change from years ago?
2. Why would scientists find information about climate change from an animal's habitat?
3. Do you believe that a Rock Hyrax's urine could actually contain climate change traces? Why or why not?
4. Why do you believe that a Rock Hyrax's urine would be in the same area in the habitat for centuries? HINT: Think about the material contained in the dried urine.
5. How do you think scientists can trace evidence from an animal's urine that climate was worse decades or centuries ago?
6. Do you believe that the materials contained in the urine could have something to do with the current events of global climate change going on in our world as we know it? If so, explain why.
Answer questions:
ReplyDelete1.Do you think this study will lead to many more studies involving this subject? I think some scientist will end up looking into this a little bit more. But this doesn't seem like a well proven enough theory to have tons of studies done to provide even more evidence for it. Although I do believe some scientist will conduct small studies on it, if climate change and these rats are really important to them.
2.What do you think about this ground-breaking discovery? I honestly don't think it is ground breaking. It seems really gross to me. But if it provides evidence from the past then it can help with predicting climate change in the future.
3.How will this information affect your overall life? I don't think this will effect my overall life directly but it may help humans in general. If we were able to better predict what might happen with climate change in the future then maybe we could better prevent it from happening. This would not only help humans but also many different types of species.
Expand with a New Link
ReplyDeletehttp://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/55000-years-old-urine-layers-used-to-track-climate-change-rock-hyrax.html
This is another article on this topic, and it also talks about evidence of climate change found through other methods like ice pillars. This is a topic we learned about in class which reminds me a lot of this urine method.