In fact, there are many species that have long been declared extinct on Earth, and in fact there may be one or two survivors living quietly in some corner. In recent years, explorers have stumbled upon clouded leopards that have disappeared for nearly 40 years in the Himalayas.
The clouded leopard is a single species, it is a genus of clouded leopards, its appearance is very beautiful, its fur is golden, there are cloud-like lines on it, the body structure is arboreal, the skull is narrow and long, short legs, large palms, thick tail, ankles can rotate 180 degrees, and is extremely flexible.
The adult clouded leopard is 0.7 to 1 meter long, weighs 20 to 40 kilograms, and has a bite force comparable to that of a cheetah, so among all the cats with "leopard" in its name, the clouded leopard is the weakest in combat, can only prey on some small and medium-sized herbivores or fish, and always comes out at night, timid, cautious and suspicious.
Globally, clouded leopards can live mainly in the mountains and jungles of Southeast Asia and South Asia, but due to shrinking forests and illegal poaching activities in search of precious furs, the already small number of clouded leopards is declining sharply every year.
It has been recorded that the clouded leopard has been extremely rare since the 80s, and after entering the 21st century, a research team using a large number of infrared cameras has not been able to find its traces, and in 13 years, some experts directly announced that the clouded leopard is likely to be extinct.
However, in 19 years the Oxford University team found the trail of the clouded leopard in Nepal's Langtang National Park at an altitude of 3,500 meters, and in 21 years the Indian wildlife research team again took images of the clouded leopard at an altitude of 3,700 meters in the Nagaland mountain range. The sudden appearance of the clouded leopard, which has been rumored extinct for nearly 40 years, has worried many experts.
Because the clouded leopard usually lives at an altitude of 1600 to 3000 meters above sea level, but these two discoveries are above 3500 meters, on the surface, this means that the clouded leopard is looking for a new living environment, due to the atmospheric effect, global warming, the temperature and humidity of the area where the clouded leopard once lived are no longer suitable for continued survival, so it has to move to a higher altitude area.
But there is a hidden impact of climate change on the environment, and Hawking has publicly said that if the climate problem is not rectified quickly, the earth will suffer. If the greenhouse effect is not treated, in the next few hundred years, the earth will be burned into a "big fireball", and the surface temperature can soar to 460 °C, which human beings simply cannot bear. In the absence of interstellar migration, humanity may be completely wiped out.
No matter how much the earth's environment deteriorates, it will always exist. But if the average temperature of the earth rises by another 3°C, the earth will not be suitable for human life. It's not that the earth needs human beings, but that human beings need a global environment suitable for their own survival! Of course, there are also theories that global warming and human activities are not actually related, but caused by changes in sunspot activity.
For example, the evidence provided by meteorological archaeology is very sufficient, and on a scale of tens of millions of years, the periodic cooling and warming of the world is just a normal natural phenomenon. After the emergence of human beings, combined with the records at that time, elephants and rhinoceros ran all over the North China Plain during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and there were often warm winters without snow in the north. Therefore, if human beings want to survive, it is best to develop in two directions in the future: planetary transformation technology and interstellar migration technology.
For planetary transformation, the best choice for human civilization is Mars, followed by the space city of the Earth-Moon Lagrange point, after all, the Earth has the most complex ecosystem in the solar system, and if you don't practice with Mars, the Earth will be wasted if you don't use Mars to practice, and if it succeeds, you can also let human beings store the fire of civilization in different places.
For interstellar migration, the Kepler space telescope has discovered many Earth-like planets outside the solar system, and the first thing to achieve is to achieve an unmanned probe beyond the solar system, and then to find suitable planets, and then to start a large-scale space migration program.