The silly season continues. Mankind is apparently seriously threatened by future plagues of dragon flies which could fly in on the wings of climate change. If the plague doesn’t get us then increasing warming could lead to a tough time from mammoth marmosets.
BBC News reports that climate change has returned a long lost dragon fly to Britain.
The dainty damselfly, a smaller relative of dragonflies, was washed away from its single East Anglian pond in the severe coastal floods of 1952/3. Now, a few individuals have been found at a site in north Kent. Conservationists believe the insects were blown on the wind from France or Belgium where they have become more common, probably due to climate change.
The Telegraph is concerned with weightier matters.
Scientists claim longer summers have led to marmots – which are ground-dwelling ‘squirrels’ – waking up earlier from hibernation, giving them more time to reproduce and gain weight before the next hibernation period. The results showed that since then, the average mass of adult marmots had increased by 11 per cent or 400 grams. The population had also grown by a quarter over a 33 year period. The lead researcher in the study, Dr Arpat Ozgul of Imperial College London, said the population increase could be down to a “short-term response” to longer summers. But he explained further study was needed to shed light on how animals will be affected by climate change in the future.
Tags: climate change, global warming, Science
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