How Many Animal Speciez Are Extinct In The Wild

Scientists have a better understanding of the number of stars and galaxies in the universe than the number of species currently on earth. A little more than ane.7 million species take been described by science and estimates of the total number of species on earth vary wildly between 3 and 100 meg. All the same each twelvemonth this staggering amount of variety takes a hit.

Research suggests that Earth is currently experiencing its sixth mass extinction. (The last extinction took out the dinosaurs 66 meg years ago). The rate of loss today is estimated to be betwixt ane,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural groundwork charge per unit.

Illustration of a Formosan Clouded Leopard from 1862. Joseph Wolf/Zoological Society of London.

Habitat destruction and degradation, inflicted as humans expand our activity further into the concluding wild places, is a powerful engine for extinction. As forest loss marches along, it carries alongside it the possibility of extinction for hundreds of species that depend on narrow slices of wood habitat for survival. Since the start of the century, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has declared 665 species either completely extinct or extinct in the wild. Here are iv woods-dependent species that have vanished due to habitat loss in the last twenty years.

Formosan Overcast Leopard

(Neofelis nebulosa brachyura)

This big cat constitute only on the island of Taiwan, a subspecies of the slightly larger clouded leopard plant throughout Asia, was declared extinct in 2013. The 2nd largest carnivore on the isle after the Formosan blackness bear (listed as vulnerable by the IUCN), the leopard'southward extinction was likely caused past the loss and fragmentation of lowland forests on the isle, replaced by agriculture, forcing the cat upwards into ever smaller ranges at higher elevations.

Co-ordinate to Global Woods Lookout (GFW) data, Taiwan lost 37,100 hectares of tree cover since the commencement of the century, with a big spike in 2009. Illegal logging and poaching of endangered tree species has posed a consistent threat to the island'southward primary forests.

2 unconfirmed clouded leopard sightings were reported in 2018. One grouping of rangers reportedly saw the true cat darting out of the fashion of a scooter before running up a tree and another grouping thought they saw one hunting goats on a cliffside. The concluding official sighting of the leopard was in 1983.

The merely remaining Spix's Macaws are in captivity. Rüdiger Stehn/Flickr

Spix's Macaw

(Cyanopsitta spixii)

This dusty bluish bird earned pop attention for inspiring the characters in the 2011 animated motion-picture show, Rio. In reality, the Spix's Macaw is the rarest parrot species in the globe, and completely extinct in the wild.

These macaws were native to the arid lowland forests in the interior and northeast of Brazil. Research determined that a species of tree (Tabebuia caraiba) was critical to the birds habitat, with one study noting that where these trees had been cleared, the macaw had disappeared. Habitat loss due to agronomics, combined with illegal trapping for the pet merchandise, is theorized to have led to their decline. A 1990 search found only 1 site with conclusive evidence of Spix's Macaws living in the country of Bahia, and in 2018 they were alleged extinct. It is estimated that betwixt 60 and 80 individuals are yet alive in captivity.

Mount Glorious Torrent Frog

(Taudactylus diurnus)

Amphibians are highly susceptible to extinction, with one in three amphibian species listed on the IUCN'due south endangered species list. The Mount Glorious Torrent Frog, a small diurnal frog native to just three mount ranges on the eastern coast of Australia, was 1 of the early on amphibian casualties. Although considered relatively common in the 1970s, the frog experienced a sharp decline and was declared extinct in 2004.

The Mount Glorious Torrent Frog inhabited mountain rainforest streams and could be plant hopping virtually in the leaf litter and vegetation well-nigh the h2o. One single cause of the frog's extinction hasn't been identified, but logging in the watershed and upstream is hypothesized to have had an impact. The area comprising the frog's estimated range lost 11,100 hectares of tree cover since the starting time of the century. Based on the rapid decline design, an infectious chytrid fungal disease could too have played a part.

Cryptic Treehunter

The larger Cryptic Treehunter (center) compared to individuals of a similar species. Barnett and Buzzetti (2014)

(Cichlocolaptes mazarbarnetti)

This minor bird, equally the proper name suggests, defied discovery for years, oftentimes getting mistaken for other similar-looking species. When it was finally identified by scientists in ii tiny patches of humid Atlantic forest in Brazil in 2014, the treehunter was already critically endangered. Intensive studies of the area estimated at most 10 breeding pairs existed in 2004, and that the population in 2014 was likely even lower, making it one of the world's rarest birds. Past 2019 the IUCN had declared them extinct.

The region of eastern Brazil where the Cryptic Treehunter was found has seen widespread tree cover loss due to shifting agriculture. Forests became highly fragmented and converted to sugarcane plantations and pastureland, which pb to a decline in the bromeliad species this bird specialized on for nesting.

These species are just a few of the hundreds that have been lost in the last two decades solitary, and there are likely countless others that are slated to join them. Extinction due to habitat loss tin sometimes exist delayed, equally individuals continue to be even though the necessary resource and habitat take dwindled past the indicate of supporting a feasible population. This "extinction debt" ways that there could be many more species that are already dead in the h2o (or the forest), unless we are able to rapidly reverse the damage done to their habitats. The Alliance for Zero Extinction has identified areas of habitat critical to the survival of endangered species. To monitor tree cover loss in these areas visit GFW.

Source: https://www.globalforestwatch.org/blog/data-and-research/four-species-that-went-extinct-this-century-because-of-forest-loss/

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