In Sichuan, there is a saying: "No rabbit can get out of Sichuan alive." ”
Every year, about 300 million rabbits fall under the knife of Sichuan cuisine chefs, and when the internal supply is insufficient, 20 to 30 million emergencies are also needed, and foodies do not care whether the rabbits belong to inbreeding or distant breeding, as long as the number can keep up, they are good rabbits.
Once upon a time, Australia was faced with tens of billions of rabbit armies, and they were very eager for the Sichuan people to go there to eliminate rabbits, and at the same time wondered, when there were only 24 rabbits, why were they not bound by inbreeding? And why can it quickly flood to tens of billions?
There are no rabbits in Australia, and the more people come, the more rabbits have been achieved
Before 1788, the rich land of Australia did not have a rabbit, and it was impossible to say anything. No, in 1788, the British came with 11 fleets. And Australia, as the place where the United Kingdom "opened up the territory and expanded the territory", in addition to bringing people, naturally also brought chickens, ducks, geese, cows, sheep and rabbits and other animals.
At first, these animals were kept in captivity by the British, just to satisfy the taste buds on the tip of the tongue, and as the days passed, life was inevitably boring. Among the outsiders, there was a famous colonist, who was already a fanatical hunter in Europe, how could he be willing to hide at home!
In order to satisfy his desire to hunt, he set up a farm in Victoria, Australia, and commissioned his nephew to mail him some local prey from Europe. In other words, in Europe at that time, rabbits were the favorite hunting objects of the princes and nobles, and among the animals mailed by the nephew this time, there were 5 European hares and 12 burrowing rabbits.
The arrival of the rabbit directly pried open the door of the Australian rabbit plague, and the colonist named Thomas. Austin, who opened Pandora's Box and followed suit from other colonists, brought 7 More European Hares. What Austin never expected was that it was these 24 rabbits that achieved the future "rabbit army" of tens of billions.
Just in Austin's 17 rabbits, in just 6 years, it has grown to tens of thousands on the farm, and these rabbits did not expect that there is such a treasure land in the world, compared to the life of Europe in Hiding, Australia is simply a paradise!
The rabbits did not care, leisurely days, is this small farm can be bound, the rabbits began to frantically nibble grass, pits and holes, just to explore the unknown world outside. Austin also had a headache, there were so many rabbits, not only did he lose interest in hunting, but even when his hounds met rabbits, they preferred to sleep at home rather than take care of them.
"Father of the Rabbit Plague": Thomas. Austin
The rabbits' minds are more active, they dream of the flower world outside, they dream of soaring, so the farm fence can not be controlled, so the rabbits collectively "escaped", and Austin also righteously became the "father of the rabbit disaster".
The rabbits' prediction is right, the world outside the fence is more colorful, Australia itself has five kinds of indigenous animals, namely kangaroos, wombats, koalas, thylacines and Australian wild dogs, but the first three are vegetarians, want them to control rabbits, doors are not, thylacines and wild dogs although eat meat, but people are also very picky, put a large number of cattle and sheep do not eat, why eat cute rabbits?
See, such a harmonious scene, even the rabbit is flattered, the rabbit secretly swears in his heart: I must make a name for myself in Australia, I have not seen the Lord who hides in Tibet. So, out of control, the rabbits went all the way to the west, and then detoured back to the north, and in just over 60 years, they established a "ten-billion rabbit army".
Why are Australian rabbits not bound by inbreeding?
It made Australia wonder why the 17 rabbits brought by Austin were also close relatives, but why they were not affected by inbreeding! After research, I learned that they really underestimated the rabbit.
In inbreeding studied by humans, the genotype of the human body can be divided into AA, Aa and Aa, assuming that there is a pair of alleles A and A, A as a dominant health gene, a as an invisible harmful gene, if the "double small a" gene appears in the individual, there is a risk of disease.
This situation occurs in close relatives, such as the same Aa and Aa gene combination, then there may be a AA, aa and two AA genes, and a as a recessive harmful gene, colliding with each other, giving birth to a quarter of the prevalence.
Moreover, this is still the result of a pair of inbreeds alleles, we can not only have this pair in the human body, but also found that the harm caused by inbreeding is 125 times that of unrelated marriage, even if there are several generations of inbreeding, ten generations are no problem, the problem may appear in the eleventh generation, which is the harm of inbreeding.
The most obvious manifestation among close relatives is that the offspring have difficult diseases such as disability, deformity, infirmity, and multiple diseases, and the cure rate is very low, and the fatality rate is surprisingly high. Therefore, human beings adopt moral and marriage laws to make relevant constraints.
Rabbits are animals, it can not control these, and in related studies, the rise and fall of animal populations, mainly affected by inbreeding and genetic drift, although it can not directly lead to extinction, but increase the risk of extinction, those endangered species, is the result of the gradual elimination of nature.
At the same time, relevant scholars conducted DNA analysis of Australian rabbits in 2003, and it can be inferred that these rabbits are almost all the 17 offspring of Austin, and it is reasonable to say that their genetic diversity is very low, but this is not the case, this population is very healthy, completely unaffected by inbreeding and genetic drift.
What's going on?
This has to find the reason from these rabbits, the rabbits brought at the beginning are mainly cave rabbits and European hares, the cave rabbit is our domestic rabbit, the cage limits its play, in fact, it is also a flexible and active, wild animal by nature, and the cunning rabbit three caves are its masterpieces.
The European hare is more powerful, it is full of tendon meat, it relies on the characteristics of running quickly and turning flexibly, once became the main hunting object of European princes and nobles, it can survive under the eyes of hounds and hunters, which shows that the ability is not small.
Back to the rabbit itself, no matter what kind of rabbit, they have super reproductive characteristics, they have two uterus, they are more "baby" animals than pigs.
Under normal circumstances, a female rabbit has the ability to reproduce at about 6 months, its gestation period is about 31 days, and it can be conceived as soon as the second day after childbirth, that is, a female rabbit may breed 3 children in the first year from birth.
The point is, the rabbit's belly is so small, you breed one or two, why breed 4 to 12? This is fatal, a fetus according to the median value of 8 counted, a year 3 births have 24 rabbits born.
If these 24 are all female rabbits, by the second year, their mothers will give birth to 6, they will give birth to 3 in the second half of the year, and after the next year, there may be 624 rabbits (6×8 + 24× 3×8 = 624). Theoretically, in just five years, a single female rabbit alone can create more than 120,000 "rabbit troops", and it seems that the fission principle that rabbits have come to hand will kill many mammals in a second.
Moreover, there is no reproductive isolation between the burrowing rabbit and the European hare, and they can also be combined at will, complement each other's strengths, and have already carried forward their own excellent genes. And inbreeding will have problems, just a probability problem, rabbits can be born so much, even if there is a problem in one or two litters, don't want it, and then breeding is.
This method of masking qualitative change by quantitative change, rabbits use it sweatily, and in their populations, problems such as deformities, disabilities and infectious diseases brought by close relatives are not a big problem.
At the same time, relevant scholars have found that Australian rabbits have already mutated their genes in the exaggerated population spread, and it seems that genetic drift has not reduced the genetic diversity of rabbits, but expanded the genetic diversity of rabbits.
Since rabbits have the ability to reproduce against the sky, this shows that rabbits themselves have excellent potential for flooding, and when external factors meet the conditions, perhaps rabbits will mutate into super species.
Why are rabbits flooded to tens of billions in Australia?
As mentioned above, the rabbit is a "baby-making" machine, and at the same time, Australia's unique environment has also made all the animals that live here.
The rabbit's hometown in Europe, from the moment of birth, faces golden eagles, lynx, foxes and other animals and humans, are its life and death enemies, and there are very few rabbits that can die, so in order to cope with the harsh environment, they can only evolve into "super-life guerrillas".
Later, greedy people once made the rabbits in Europe endangered, fortunately, the British went to Australia to open up land, which can also help the rabbits to find a way to survive.
Rabbits are biased towards wetland animals, and they have just come to southern Australia, where the climate is mild and humid, the environment is beautiful and lush, which is naturally the ideal paradise for rabbits. Moreover, Australian cattle, sheep, kangaroos, koalas and other herbivores have long nourished the land with excrement, and the abundant grassland has provided shelter for rabbits.
Later, the mixed offspring of European hares, burrowing rabbits and domestic rabbits also quickly adapted to the dry climate of northern Australia, and the original indigenous animals, who could tolerate the sparse vegetation of the barren land, lacked the squeeze of other animals, and the rabbits soon settled down.
Map of the distribution of rabbits in Australia
Later, people also continued to open up the land, and while benefiting themselves, they also became an important promoter of rabbits. As mentioned above, the original five indigenous Australians, even if the thylacine and the Dingo can help catch rabbits, but these rabbits run at a speed of up to 72 km / h, and rabbits also have excellent steering ability, catching rabbits is really difficult! This job really can't be done, or please be smart!
Since no animal can control these rabbits, in a very short period of time, it causes the rabbits to run on the ground to the fullest, eating recklessly, punching holes everywhere, and living a comfortable and how to live.
In summary, rabbits flooded In Australia, it took only more than 60 years to transform into tens of billions.
Once Australia controlled the rabbit's tricks
O natives! You are waste, and since you can't manage it, it's up to me to take care of it. Oops, what's wrong with that? Whether I'm hunting or smoking, the rabbits are still at ease, and I can't control it, or please be smart!
No, Australia has invited foxes and wildcats to manage, at first it is good to say, foxes and wildcats also tried their best to manage for a while, but they gradually found that something is wrong, rabbits are not easy to manage, I still go to hunt those slow local marsupials and birds! The fox and the wildcat said, I don't care, I love who cares.
Since the animals can't control it, they have to rely on people! So, the New South Wales government took the lead in standing up and widely posting heroes, and if anyone could provide a way to eliminate hares, I had a heavy reward, and with a wave of my hand, a reward list of 25,000 pounds came out. At this time, a biologist Pasteur wanted to use the infectious disease to eliminate the hare, but the rabbit did not appreciate it, and finally failed.
What to do? Do you want to manage it without physical means? Come on! I've left you flooding in just one piece of land, and you don't want to pollute Western Australia. Therefore, the fence project, which has been under construction for 7 years, came. Even if it is reinforced twice, even if it extends for more than 3,000 kilometers, it still can't carry the rabbit's mouth and four legs!
It was time for the Australian officials to come up with the way to eliminate the hare by using bombers to drop poison, and this time finally controlled the spread of the hare, but the green grass was contaminated again, and there was no way to quickly terminate the plan. Later, the virus was used to encircle and suppress, this time the myxoma virus caused a devastating blow to the rabbits, 99.9% of the rabbits fell, leaving 0.1% to survive.
Thinking that it was all right, the result was that these 0.1% rabbits, relying on a strong base and rich genetic diversity, actually evolved an immune physique, and when the enhanced version of the hare recaptured the grassland again, each of them was fat and strong, and the largest individual was even close to 100 pounds. In the 1990s, the number reached more than 600 million.
At this time, the rabbit cup virus from China completely destroyed the rabbits' recovery plan, and after this time, the rabbits were finally controlled in the ideal range, and as of now, there are about 200 million rabbits in Australia.
Can the Sichuanese help Australia control its hare population?
As we all know, Sichuan people are very fond of eating rabbit meat, this gastronomic feature, has been developed dozens of ways to eat, such as dry pot rabbit, spicy rabbit, pickled pepper rabbit, shuangliu rabbit head, Zigong delicious rabbit, etc., fresh and spicy, endless aftertaste, exhaustive use, lingering.
According to statistics, Sichuan consumes more than 300 million rabbits every year, and when the number is insufficient, it also needs to transfer more than 2,000 to 3,000 emergency animals. This is still a limitation, if you let go of eating, maybe this number will be several times higher.
If Australian rabbits need to be consumed by Sichuan, can we eat them as endangered animals? Obviously impossible, why is that?
Take the crayfish that invaded the mainland, for example, consume millions of tons per year, but it still can't control its flooding momentum. In Yunnan and other places, patches of crayfish have become a nightmare for farmers. Looking at all the invasive species, there is no one that can be solved by eating it alone.
Therefore, it is not feasible to rely on eating, moreover, Australia is a typical sparsely populated area, there are too many no-man's land, rabbits can nest in it to breed, but humans can not easily step in.
What's more, after many times of virus elimination, rabbits have already evolved super antibodies, with the continuous evolution of genetic diversity, the current Australian hare, has long been plagued by poisons, try to ask, this rabbit can still eat?
If there are so many rabbits living in China, I believe that the Sichuan people can eat them until they are seriously injured, and there is still a little guarantee.
Write at the end
In the animal kingdom, inbreeding also varies from species to species, for example, there were only seven Rai Island ducks left in the world at that time, but they survived and developed into hundreds now. Obviously, rabbits belong to this category.
Moreover, rabbits have strong reproductive ability, it makes up for the lack of genes, and the more time goes on, their genes will also mutate, and when the genetic diversity is restored, they will become out of control.
Nature pays attention to the balance of species, as long as we do not deliberately destroy, I believe that under the regulation of nature, each species can find a constraint point, the number may be large, but not flooded. Just like rabbits in Europe, there are multiple natural enemies that can be maintained, but after human intervention, they quickly become endangered species.
Now the devastated earth is caused by humans, and once the earth is "angry", it may cause immeasurable consequences, such as the Tonga volcano a few days ago, which is the result of the earth's "tantrum".