![ice age watch online ice age watch online](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/4/46/The_wall_by_MarcSimonetti.jpg)
These are things you could just come across with a quick search.” “Definitely, some of the bigger platforms are some of the places where you can find these things for sale,” Losey said. Students examined the different platforms' regulations regarding the sale of illegal or restricted products. The team also looked at online platforms such as eBay, Etsy, Alibaba, and Amazon. These lists included the CITES appendices, the IUCN Red List, and the US Endangered Species list. Throughout that fall semester, the class surveyed online sales while drilling down into specific lists of at-risk species. According to Losey, the students in the class decided that they would scour the Internet to find examples of insect and arachnid species (either pinned or alive specimens) that should be protected. The inspiration for the work came from the news that a dead specimen of a particularly rare bee-Wallace’s Giant Bee-was found for sale on eBay. The research began in the fall of 2019 as part of a class on insect conservation biology. Mandating more information about how the bugs were sourced could help buyers make more informed decisions and limit damage to the environment, he said. However, the researcher noted that his paper, which surveys the sale of insects and arachnids online, highlights the need for better regulation of these sales. Some of them could very well have been reared in a sustainable program, Losey said-there's just no way to tell. “There are sites out there that are definitely not providing documentation that what they’re selling is being done sustainably.”Īccording to Losey, some websites will provide no documentation or proof showing that a rare pinned butterfly specimen or pet tarantula was collected in a way that doesn't pose a risk for wild populations. “It’s not always clear… if they’re sustainable or not,” John Losey, a Cornell entomology professor and one of the paper’s authors, told Ars. Others might be taken from wild populations that are at risk, according to new research out of Cornell University that was published last week. Some may be bred and reared in sustainable programs. However, in some cases, the insects or spiders sold through the various e-commerce sites, both niche and large-scale, may be of dubious provenance. Alive or dead, rare or mundane, bugs are weirdly easy to find for sale online.