We have all heard at some time or another that Australia has the worst record of mammal extinctions in history, with many of our unique and vulnerable critters succumbing only years after the first Europeans…
You have to go back to the time of the dinosaurs to see where Earth is heading.
Mr Kimberley/Flickr
Why have mass extinctions of species occurred since the late Proterozoic (from 580 million years ago) and repeatedly through the Phanerozoic? Integral to these extinctions were abrupt changes in the physical…
The pika is one species struggling to evolve fast enough to keep up with climate change.
http://www.itsnature.org/ground/pika/
We currently face a biodiversity and extinction crisis as human population pressures and climate change combine to push our natural environments to the limit.
Because our urban and agricultural activities…
In his 2011 ASSA Cunningham Lecture this month, food policy expert Professor Tim Lang suggested that we “experiment” with alternative diets to reduce our meat and dairy consumption. Lang suggested that…
The demise of the woolly mammoth could teach us much about our effect on other species.
George Teichmann
When we think of the last 50,000 years of prehistory, particularly the “Ice Age”, extinct species such as the woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros often spring to mind.
Did humans bring about the extinction…
Landscape is the star in The Hunter, but science plays a respectable supporting role.
Matthew Nettheim
All over the planet, a new wave of exploration and exploitation is taking place. Bioprospectors are searching for new and useful biological samples and compounds from previously unstudied animals and plants…
We can't run away from it: we need food, and we need biodiversity.
buiversonian
Our planet is on the precipice of a sixth mass extinction event.
But unlike the five previous mass extinctions, this one is man-made: a global biodiversity crisis in which species are disappearing three…
Coelondonta thibetana, an ancestor of the above, is a revelation and a paradox.
thejanehorton
Fossils from a new species of woolly rhinoceros found in Tibet have the potential to rock several cherished theories.
According to the authors of a new paper published today in Science, the rhino showed…
Of an estimated 30 two-footed ape species, we're the last ones standing.
Vermin Inc/Flickr
Does climate change seriously threaten to wipe out the human species if left unchecked? Examining our evolutionary past suggests it might once have been the perfect catalyst for our extinction. But now…
The hairy-nosed wombat is just one of the species at Australia's "frozen zoo".
Fleshpiston/Flickr
Let’s be clear: the world’s animal resources are rapidly declining.
Globally, more than 5,000 wildlife species are threatened with extinction. Some 25% are mammals, and 11% birds. Of the reptile, amphibian…
