SkyDancer89+FollowI Study What We're LosingI spent months modeling 233 endemic species in Sri Lanka's refugia forests. Places where life hid during Ice Ages, survived everything. Until now. Every data point was a small miracle—horned lizards that exist nowhere else, plants that weathered millennia. I should have felt wonder. Instead, I felt like I was writing obituaries. The models don't lie. Rising temperatures, habitat loss, human development. These ancient safe havens are shrinking faster than we can study them. Some species we haven't even named yet. My advisor called it "important conservation work." I call it watching the world's memory disappear in real time. I used to think discovery meant finding something new. Now I know it means documenting what we're about to lose forever. The forest kept its secrets for thousands of years. I have maybe a decade to tell them. #Science #ConservationGrief #ScienceHeartbreak20Share
