Latest Extinction Stories
The International Union for Conservation of Nature, based in Switzerland, said Thursday 12 percent of the world's bird species face extinction. The conservation group said in a news release 1,227 species were tabbed as globally threatened with extinction in recent research conducted by BirdLife International. Among them were 192 species that were deemed critically endangered. It is extremely worrying that the number of critically endangered birds on the IUCN red List continues to increase,...
Scientists are warning that the wild ancestors of common domestic fruit trees are in danger of becoming extinct, BBC News reported.The conclusion is based on a "red list" of threatened species that grow in the forests of Central Asia where the disease-resistant and climate-tolerant fruit trees could play a role in our future food security.However, conservation charity Fauna & Flora International said that about 90 percent of the forests have been destroyed in the last 50...
Records test competing theories about the evolution of local speciesThere is a new tool for those developing conservation strategies for threatened species and landscapes: museum specimens. Richard Pearson and Christopher Raxworthy of the American Museum of Natural History dusted off a number of collections from Madagascar and used the location information associated with each species to test different ideas regarding the evolution of locally distributed endemism (unique species confined to...
For those who think of nature as a wild, unspoiled Eden that preserves the natural flora and fauna free from human interference, global warming has a nasty surprise in store, according to University of California, Berkeley, biologist Anthony Barnosky.In his new book, "Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming" (Island Press, 2009), Barnosky says that because of climate change, wilderness left to its own will no longer look like the natural areas we see today. Our conservation...
The same types of fishes are vulnerable todayLarge size and a fast bite spelled doom for bony fishes during the last mass extinction 65 million years ago, according to a new study to be published March 31, 2009, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Today, those same features characterize large predatory bony fishes, such as tuna and billfishes, that are currently in decline and at risk of extinction themselves, said Matt Friedman, author of the study and a graduate student...
An international conservation group says many freshwater fish, crabs, dragonflies, mollusks and aquatic plants are at risk of extinction in southern Africa. The International Union for Conservation of Nature said a study conducted with the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity shows 7 percent of species are known to be regionally threatened or extinct and that figure is expected to rapidly increase unless conservation is considered in development planning. The U.S. organization's...
CANYON, Texas, March 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Walter Perriman returns home to New York from a dig he has been exploring in the Gobi Desert with evidence that 60 million years ago, global warming triggered a DNA sequence in dinosaurs that caused their extinction. He has found the same DNA sequence in recently extinct species and believes that today's climate changes are again activating what he calls the "extinction gene." The proof for his theories is in danger of being lost due to the...
Most wild species are expected to colonize northwards as the climate warms, but how are they going to get there when so many landscapes are covered in wheat fields and other crops? A study published today (Wednesday 25 February 2009) shows it is possible to predict how fast a population will spread and reveals the importance of habitat conservation in helping threatened species survive environmental changePublished in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the research tracks the...
Scientists said on Wednesday that an experiment involving the relocation of butterfly colonies in Britain shows that animals and plants can be moved to new, cooler habitats to help them survive global warming, Reuters reported.Chris Thomas, professor of Conservation Biology at the University of York, said many species around the world are moving because of climate change. "But they are often moving slowly, lagging behind shifts in the climate," he said.He said groups have already begun...
Italy's Global Crop Diversity Trust says it has collected about 53,000 seed samples of the 100,000 varieties of food crops it wants to save from extinction. The biological rescue effort is designed to preserve the availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide. It involves food crops from 46 nations and is one of the largest such programs ever undertaken. We are moving quickly to regenerate and preserve seed samples representing thousands of distinct varieties of critical food...
Latest Extinction Reference Libraries
Commonly known as the Eurasian cave lion or the European cave lion, Panthera leo spelaea is an extinct subspecies of lion. It is thought to have lived during the Pleistocene epoch, and may have lived in the Balkans in southeastern Europe until 2,000 years ago. The range of this cave lion would have included northwestern North America, Asia, and areas of Europe and would have extended from Germany, Spain, and Great Britain to the Yukon Territory. Its range also extended from Turkistan to...
The short-faced bear is an extinct genus of bears that was native to North America during the Pleistoscene era. Other common names include Arctodus and the bulldog bear. There are two subspecies of the short-faced bear, and one of them, Aroctodus simus, is thought to have been the largest terrestrial mammal on earth. Placed into a group of bears known as running bears or the tremarctine bears, this genus was found in Europe and the Americas. The earliest member of the tremarchtine group,...
The American lion (Panthera leo atrox or P. atrox) is also known as the North American lion, American cave lion, or Naegele’s giant jaguar. It is an extinct species that was native to North America and the northwestern parts of South America during the Pleistocene era. It lived up to eleven thousand years ago. During the last interglacial period in North America (the Sangamonian Stage), the American lion’s range included the Americas south of Alaska. The earliest fossils of these big cats...
Miracinonyx, commonly known as the American Cheetah, is an extinct genus of large cats. It was native to North America during the Pleiotocene era(1.8 million to 11,000 years ago). The American cheetah held at least two species in its genus that are similar to modern cheetahs, including Miracinonyx inexpectatus and M. trumani. Similarities distinguished by bone fragments include a short face and nose for better breathing, and elongated legs used for swiftly hunting prey. These similarities are...
Glyptotherium is an extinct genus of mammal related to the armadillo. Glyptodontids lived about 4.1 to 1.5 million years ago. It is believed this genus was wiped out by climate change or perhaps early human interference, although there is no direct evidence of humans preying on them. Species of this genus thrived in tropical and subtropical regions of Florida, South Carolina, Texas, and Arizona. The genus was named in 1903, and assigned to the family Glyptodontinae in 1995. Like its...
