Chapter 10 : The New Pangea (Angel Jorge)

In Chapter 10 of Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert opens the chapter with a narrative taking place in 2007, where a group of biologists decided to count the population of bats in Albany during the winter. When they arrived at caves they saw many bats dead on the ground covered in a white-powdery fungus called Geomyces destructans. In this chapter, you will notice many similarities between these bats and the golden frogs like how both are dying from a toxin and both their deaths have to do with humans' attempts to alter their environment. Kolbert explains how Darwin conceived of the natural world as a series of distinct, isolated ecosystems. "There is no rule for how a species behaves when it is introduced to a new environment. However, when the new species is successful, it can often take over its new habitat, irrevocably changing the world it inhabits. In short, each ecosystem has its own delicate equilibrium, and when a new species begins to dominate the ecosystem, that equilibrium is destroyed," (Page 197). This quote shows how new species interrupt the environment and ecosystem around them and how it may have a lasting impact. Kolbert introduces us to the phenomenon of animals being able to travel all throughout the world thanks to human impact. She calls this phenomenon the "New Pangea." The chapter ends on a note of tragedy:  the extinction of a certain species of bat in New England may spread to other bat species, another illustration of how the extinction of one animal can cause a domino effect, resulting in a mass-extinction. This relates to the APES theme that states that Humans have had an impact on the environment for millions of years.