NASA
Realising the silence of outer space was what made us appreciate our precarious position down on this pale blue dot – so beginning our obsession with extinction.
Photo Art Lucas/Shutterstock
We don’t notice the plant species we’re losing, but we won’t be able to ignore the effect of their loss on our supply of food and medicine.
Rosa in the Sumatran Rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis ) Sanctuary, Way Kambas, Sumatra, Indonesia.
Willem v Strien/Wikipedia
The world mourns the loss of Malaysia’s last male Sumatran rhino. Can anything stop the slide of the species towards extinction?
The now-extinct giant beaver once lived from Florida to Alaska. It weighed as much as 100 kilograms, roughly the same as a small black bear.
Illustrated by Luke Dickey/Western University
Scientists studied the fossilized bones of giant beavers to understand what they ate and whether the species could keep up with environmental change.
“Vic Stockwell’s puzzle”: a close but anciently separated relative of the eucalypts.
Frank Zich
Stockwellia has links back to the epoch before Australia separated into its own continent and was mostly covered in rainforest.
A bumblebee sips nectar from a clover.
Victoria MacPhail
Wild bees pollinate trees and shrubs that feed and shelter wildlife, provide flood control, prevent soil erosion and help regulate the climate.
Sharks and rays are among the most data-deficient groups of species.
HQuality/Shutterstock
A landmark report found more than one million species at risk of extinction – but even the “safe” ones may not be so safe.
Sunset at Madagascar’s avenue of the baobabs in Morondavo.
Chr. Offenberg/Shutterstock
President Rajoelina’s five-year term, starting in 2019, may be the last chance to avoid habitats and species from going extinct.
Koalas are facing serious threats in the wild.
Mathias Appel/Flickr
It’s hard to say exactly how many koalas are in the wild, but there’s no doubt they’re in serious trouble.
The endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland is an ecological community that have shrunk to 6% of their original area.
Pete the Poet/Flickr
Tackling the extinction crisis is not just about protecting each species. It’s also about preserving their home.
Feral cats kill millions of Australian animals a year.
Mark Marathon/AAP
Cats are wreaking havoc on Australia’s ecosystems and non-lethal methods aren’t enough.
The black-throated finch is on the verge of extinction.
Brian McCauley/flickr
A small finch has stalled the multi-million-dollar Carmichael mine.
The exploitation of the land and sea is the number one reason for biodiversity extinction, according to a new report.
Shutterstock
The Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has some sobering news.
How many species still to name? That’s a good question.
Shutterstock/ju see
New species are being discovered all the time, which only adds to the problem of knowing how many there are on the planet today. It also helps to know what we mean by species.
Two southern resident killer whales surface near Saturna Island, B.C, in September 2012.
Miles Ritter/flickr
A bold new approach could protect endangered animals.
Shutterstock
Bruce Willis saved the Earth with a nuclear weapon in the 1998 film Armageddon, but the law would need to change for him to do it now.
Waves can be generated in lakes and other bodies of water when seismic energy travels through land.
Leo Roomets / Unsplash
If you’ve never heard of a form of wave called a ‘seiche’ – which can occur in swimming pools during earthquakes – this is your chance to catch up.
A modern mouse lemur Microcebus sits upon the cranium of an extinct Megaladapis lemur.
Dao Van Hoang www.daovanhoang.com
A series of new studies sheds light on the population crash and extinction of the giant birds, lemurs and more that roamed the island until around A.D. 700-1000.
The Mossy Red-eyed Frog is among hundreds of species threatened with extinction at the hands of chytrid fungus.
Jonathan Kolby/Honduras Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Center
Chytrid fungus has caused declines in 501 amphibian species, according to a new analysis. Most of the damage happened in the 1980s, before the fungus itself was even discovered.
Christian Bertrand/Shutterstock.com
A psychologist explains why we should accept that we will never live in the Anthropocene.