IUCN Red List 2024: Pygmy Elephant from Borneo (Elephas_maximus_borneensis)
Over the past 75 years, the number of dwarf elephants living in Borneo has dramatically declined. The lowland forests they inhabit are being extensively logged, leading to the elephants now being classified as endangered. (© Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons))

IUCN Red List 2024: One Thousand Additional Animal and Plant Species Threatened with Extinction

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has released its latest Red List of Threatened Species. In its 60th year, the list, which now includes more than 163,040 species, warns of a concerning rise in the number of animals and plants threatened with extinction. Over 45,000 species are now

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Animals declared extinct in 2023: Epioblasma torulosa
Two subspecies of the freshwater mussel Epioblasma torulosa were delisted from the Endangered Species Act by the FWS and officially declared extinct in 2023. (© Naturalis Biodiversity Center, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Animals declared extinct in 2023

In 2023, scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) officially declared 21 species, including ten birds, eight mussels, two fish, and one mammal, to be extinct. Additionally, the international conservation organization IUCN changed the status of the Java stingaree (Urolophus javanicus) on its Red List to “extinct.” This

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Chestnut casebearer moth (Coleophora leucochrysella)
A photo of the chestnut casebearer moth, published on iNaturalist in June 2020, shows that this species is not extinct as previously believed. Scientists had thought that the insect from the casebearer moth family had disappeared between 1904 and 1950. (© Steven Whitebread, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Chestnut casebearer moth

Chestnut blight from East Asia devastated more than just the American chestnut The American chestnut casebearer moth relied on the native American chestnut (Castanea dentata) for survival. This hardwood tree was the sole host plant for its larvae, ultimately leading to the highly specialized moth species’ downfall. Once one of

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Birds lost to science: White-breasted Zosterops (Zosterops albogularis)
The white-chested white-eye is also on the list of lost bird species. It was native to Norfolk Island and the last sighting of a specimen was in 2005. (© Rawpixel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

New Analysis: 126 Birds Lost to Science – no Confirmed Sighting in at Least a Decade

As part of the project The Search for Lost Birds, a collaboration between Re:wild, the American Bird Conservancy, and BirdLife International, the most comprehensive listing of bird species considered lost to science has been created. A newly published study in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment reveals that

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Polar Bears could go extinct by the 2030s
A warming of more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels threatens the southern and western polar bear populations of Hudson Bay with local extinction. (© Arturo de Frias Marques, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Global warming: Polar bears could become extinct as early as the 2030s

The future of polar bears in Hudson Bay, Canada, looks bleak: a new study warns that polar bears could become regionally extinct as early as the 2030s if global warming continues to rise and surpass critical thresholds. Researchers from several North American and international institutions caution that a global temperature

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Tylototriton ngoclinhensis
The species name ngoclinhensis refers to the type locality of the newly discovered Ngoc Linh crocodile newt (Tylototriton ngoclinhensis), which is Ngoc Linh Mountain in the central highlands of Vietnam. (© Phung TM, Pham CT, Nguyen TQ, Ninh HT, Nguyen HQ, Bernardes M, Le ST, Ziegler T, Nguyen TT (2023) Southbound – the southernmost record of Tylototriton (Amphibia, Caudata, Salamandridae) from the Central Highlands of Vietnam represents a new species. ZooKeys 1168: 193-218.)

Newly discovered animals 2023

It is said that between 11,000 and 58,000 animal and plant species irreversibly go extinct each year, but there is also good news: around 18,000 new species are described and named by taxonomists each year; this number includes extinct or fossilized organisms, as well as bacteria and viruses. Even in

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Ciridops anna
The Ula-ai-hawane in the book Birds of the Sandwich Islands (1890-1899) by F. W. Frohawk. (© Frederick William Frohawk, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Ula-ai-hawane

The Hawaiian Islands once hosted 57 species of honeycreepers Honeycreepers (Drepanidini), a tribe within the finch family (Fringillidae), are found only on the Hawaiian Island chain. Honeycreepers are closely related as sister species to the rosefinches (Carpodacus), yet many species have developed characteristics that differ from those of finches. Honeycreepers

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Yellow-tipped Oahu tree snail Achatinella apexfulva
The extinct yellow-tipped Oahu tree snail Achatinella apexfulva (above) at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, Netherlands. The species epithet apexfulva means “yellow tip” and refers to the color of the snail shell. (© Naturalis Biodiversity Center, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Yellow-tipped Oahu tree snail

Hawaii’s first scientifically described snail The yellow-tipped Oahu tree snail Achatinella apexfulva is not only the first scientifically described snail of the Hawaiian archipelago but also the first officially declared extinct. The species was first described in 1789 by British sailor and explorer George Dixon, who acquired a traditional necklace

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