This Species Was Actually Around Before the Dinosaurs But Could Be Extinct Soon Because of Climate Change

Amaze Lab

This is what is sometimes referred to as a living fossil, that’s because the organism has been around for some 390 million years. But our planet is changing and experts now say it could soon face extinction.

Transcript

00:00This is what is sometimes referred to as a living fossil.

00:08That's because the organism has been around for some 390 million years.

00:12But our planet is changing, and experts now say it could soon face extinction.

00:17The species is called Takakia, and it's a type of moss.

00:20The moss is found only in some of the most remote areas of the U.S., Japan, and in the Himalayas.

00:26And it's one of the quickest species to adapt to environmental changes.

00:29In fact, it's been around since before the Himalayas even existed,

00:32which biologists say it was forced to quickly adapt as the mountains literally grew out of nowhere.

00:37But because climate change is altering our world more quickly than that,

00:40even this fast-evolving plant can't keep up.

00:43Despite being extremely active on a genetic level and being the genome with the highest number of fast-evolving genes,

00:48scientists say they expect Takakia to be extinct in just the next 100 years.

00:52A hard truth to swallow, considering this species predates the dinosaurs by 160 million years.

00:58Which is why biologists have now begun to collect and transplant it to other areas,

01:03hoping it will adapt elsewhere and continue its long-lived existence.

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