🧵 How do islands get bugs?
Anonymous at Wed, 20 Nov 2024 01:28:21 UTC No. 16485646
I was watching thing about pitcairn island of the mutiny of the bounty fame. And I wondered if the island has bugs. Apparently it does. But how? How can an island spawn in the middle of the sea thousands of miles from any mainland and have insects and spiders on it?
Anonymous at Wed, 20 Nov 2024 01:51:14 UTC No. 16485669
i'm only some dumbass on the internet but i imagine birds could bring them, like by eating their eggs and some making it out intact
Anonymous at Wed, 20 Nov 2024 03:22:39 UTC No. 16485794
A bazillion ways. Bug is blown all the way there by a storm. Bug hitchhike there on a bird. Bug on a piece of drift wood reach the island. It will happen when you have millions of years to do it.
Anonymous at Wed, 20 Nov 2024 03:47:43 UTC No. 16485828
>>16485794
Stowaways on human ships as well.
Anonymous at Wed, 20 Nov 2024 04:06:37 UTC No. 16485852
The story of the bounty mutineers is hilarious, they self destructed and started murdering each other so quickly. Based Captain Bligh and his loyalists are the only ones who survived the mutiny other than the one mutineer who was the best at murdering his cohorts.
Anonymous at Wed, 20 Nov 2024 08:50:45 UTC No. 16486030
>>16485646
It is quite easy due to the fact after initial landfall into an island body, bugs can become self sufficient through exploiting the resources of the land and breed at high rates, forever populating the Island.
Their ways of transportation are through meteorological events, those would be heavy storms as an example, another would include birds through time bringing them into the island
Anonymous at Wed, 20 Nov 2024 09:22:39 UTC No. 16486044
>>16485646
>How do islands get bugs?
Air currents actually do most of the work.
The sky has wind tunnels, channels, whatever word you want to use, that flying insects (and spiders with web parachutes) use to glide to new territories like islands. Beyond that this Anon has you covered: >>16485794 on birds, and on drift wood or flotsam (insects can go without sustenance for a long time).
People also accidentally introduce insects via ship, but more specifically on produce like fruits and vegetables. Soil is another potential contaminating agent: coconut rhinoceros beetles were infamously introduced to Hawaii, subsequently ruining the many of the state's coconut trees, via grubs in garden soil originally packaged and imported from South East Asia.
Anonymous at Wed, 20 Nov 2024 09:41:00 UTC No. 16486058
>>16485646
Wet bugs crawl out of the sea and eventually dry off.