Category: Mainstream

I must admit that what I liked best about this recent post over at BoingBoing was not so much the idea of concentrating conservation efforts on animals that “have few close relatives on the tree of life and are often extremely unusual in the way they look, live and behave, as well as in their genetic make-up” — although that IS pretty cool — so much as the photo of the weird salamander. And, indeed, that there is an International Cooperation Network for Giant Salamander Conservation. But then I got to thinking about which species one would choose if one was going to do something similar for crops. What crops have few relatives and are just plain strange, for whatever reason? The artichoke? The caper? Buckwheat? The coconut? Send in your vote…