Mass Extinction Happened in a Geological ‘Instant’
It took less than 30,000 years and maybe only thousands, to kill more than 90% of sea creatures and most land species, according to the…
Extinction News
Scientists Document a Surprising Trend in a Study on Extinctions
Sixty-five million years ago, clouds of ash choked the skies over Earth. Dinosaurs, along with about half of all the species on Earth, staggered and…
MIT Study Predicts Thresholds for a Sixth Mass Extinction
According to a newly published study from MIT, Earth’s oceans may hold enough carbon to launch mass extinction of species in future millennia. In the…
Initial Pulse of Siberian Traps Sills Triggered End-Permian Extinction
New research from MIT reveals that about 251.9 million years ago, in a region that today is known as the Siberian Traps, a huge pulse…
Scientists Should Focus on Changes in Species to Recognize and Avoid a Mass Extinction
New research from Yale University urges scientists to move their focus from species extinction to species rarity in order to recognize, and avoid, a mass…
Siberian Traps Likely Triggered Mass Extinction
A new study from MIT reveals that the Siberian Traps erupted at the right time, and for the right duration, to have been a likely…
New Research Shows Extinctions During Human Era Worse Than Previously Thought
A new and more precise recalculation of the normal background extinction rate reveals that the rate of extinction in the human era is as much…
Possible Planetary Disasters That Could Cause Extinction
In the last 40,000 years, there have been at least ten gigantic landslides of more than 100 cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) in the North…
28-Foot Ichthyosaur Discovered
Researchers have discovered an 8.6-meter (28-foot) long reptile with a massive skull and sharp teeth that lived 244 million years ago, during the Triassic Period….
At Least a Third of All Marine Species Are Still Unknown
The most comprehensive assessment of ocean life has revealed that one-third to two-thirds of all species are still unknown to science. The scientists published their…
Study Looks at the Role of Climate Change in Extinction
A newly published study examines the role of climate change in extinction, finding that very few populations have gone extinct simple because it got too…
A Fifth of All Invertebrates on Earth Threatened by Extinction
One in five of Earth’s invertebrate species is currently threatened with extinction. These creatures represent 99% of the biodiversity on Earth. Until now, scientists haven’t…
Extinctions Due to Habitat Loss are Proportional to the Area Destroyed
While studying extinction threat due to habitat loss, scientists found that the relationship between geographic area and richness of species primarily depends on the mean…
Previously Thought Extinct Sri Lankan Kandyan Dwarf Toad Reappears
The Sri Lankan Kandyan dwarf toad (Adenomus kandianus) was thought to be extinct. It’s still listed as extinct, and hadn’t been seen in almost 135…
Earth Recovered 10 Million Years After Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction
The greatest mass extinction pulse was the Permian-Triassic extinction event, and it happened about 250 million years ago, nearly wiping out life on Earth. It…
Reproductive Cycle Put Dinosaurs at a Disadvantage
In a published study, scientists from the University of Zurich and Zoological Society of London describe how they believe the reproductive cycle of egg laying…
Native Hawaiian Vertebrate Species Reported Extinct
Scientists have confirmed that there have been no sightings of the copper striped blue-tailed skink in the Hawaiian Islands since the 1960s and are now…
Poisonous Dendrobatidae Frogs are Aposematic Organisms and Critically Endangered
These colorful photos of two species of Dendrobatidae, from the Reptile House at the London Zoo, feature these critically endangered amphibians in all of their…