In the eccentric article I link to below, the author wonders how the ecology of Earth would be affected by the magical ability to extinguish 50% of all life with the click of the finger. In the discussion, the writer comments on a strange development in Australia in the 1890’s: the Australian dung beetles had evolved to process marsupial dung … and they had no interest in the placental sheep dung that was being dropped all over the place.
This triggered a “massive” surge in fly populations! Imagine the plague!!! All this is very understandable under an evolutionary scenario. But in a Young Earth scenario, there wouldn’t be enough time for dung beetles to so exclusively adapt to “only marsupial dung”!
Would this mean that not only did the marsupials have to race to Australia to occupy the vast territory before it moved out to the middle of the ocean … but that even specialized dung beetles had to race to Australia?
No… not to the same degree. Beetles can fly! But the whole situation is starting to sound more and more ridiculous!
" . . . insects are also important cleanup crews, dealing with materials like corpses or dung that other animals can’t break down. There’s a whole community of dung-feeding insects, and when this community is absent, then you end up knee deep in dung,” Berenbaum says. A situation like this actually happened to Australia in the 1890s."
“Colonists brought non-marsupial mammals like sheep to the continent, and the local dung beetles couldn’t digest their different poop. The accumulation of feces and accompanying flies caused a massive problem until a Hungarian ecologist named George Bornemissza recognized the cause and started importing dung beetles that could process the waste. Thanos’ snap could cause a similar situation worldwide.”
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Read more: If Thanos Actually Wiped Out Half of All Life, How Would Earth Fare in the Aftermath? | Science | Smithsonian
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