The Return Of The Muse

I remember ten years ago when they first found zebra mussels in lake Michigan, that everybody thought it was the end of the world. My neighbors were complaining that not only would you not be able to walk bear-foot on the beach any more, but all the old shipwrecks would be destroyed by the build up of shells. I used to think that it was pretty bad. Now that I’ve read the SkyPath scrolls, however, I’m convinced it’ll all turn out OK. After all, half the species on Earth are native to other planets anyhow.

Lets take the mastodons for example. There’s a reason we don’t find them in fossil layers as old as dinosaurs. They are relatively new arrivals on Earth. When the ancient Hittites first sailed to Mars around 1900 BC, they were astonished to find large herds of this elephant-like creature with tasty meat. So they brought them back to Earth, where they multiplied for a few hundred years before they died out.  They didn’t last long on Mars either. They were hunted to extinction by 1100 BC.

But this is only one of hundreds of species that originated on other worlds. The ancient Phoenicians brought many things to Earth during the golden age of interplanetary trade. Several species of mushrooms, for instance, originated from Jupiter’s moon Io. Poison arrow frogs came from Venus.

Monarch butterflies came all by themselves. They, like humans, used to migrate as far as they could along the ether streams. I have no idea what planet they came from, since they loved to visit all of them. But they seem to have loved Earth the best. The numbers leaving Earth were always ten times smaller than the numbers coming in.

So let’s stop complaining about “invasive species.” It’s just part of natural selection. If we didn’t have invasive species from other planets, Earth would be lots less genetically diverse.

Note to readers: I admit that there are some problems associated with invasive species. The bubonic plague most likely came from Neptune’s moon Tritan.

The Return of the Muse is not a news source. This post relates to the imaginary universe of the SkyPath Crusade epic poem.

Click here to read similar posts