Extinction is a natural part of life on Earth. But occasionally, extinction rates have surged far beyond usual levels, driving mass extinction events that have reshaped the trajectory of life. After a ...

This can be seen also in the geological record. Five big mass extinction events are recognized by paleontologists. At the end of the Ordovician some 443 million years ago, when an estimated 86% of ...

Here are four animals that managed to persist through Earth’s mass extinction events. Additionally, horseshoe crabs have a reproductive strategy that includes spawning in large numbers ...

Is the biosphere today on the verge of anything like the mass ... extinction rate is landscape modification, an impact greatly increased by the burgeoning human population. Now standing at 5.7 ...

Less than 5 percent of the animal species in the seas ... to identify the killer responsible for the largest of the many mass extinctions that have struck the planet. The most famous die-off ...

If you think the world has been extra interested lately in what might have caused previous mass extinction events, you’re ...

The four previous mass extinctions were also thought to have involved climatic changes—due to large-scale volcanic eruptions, for example—and in one case obliterated all but 5 percent of species. (See ...

Extinction is the most serious, irreversible impact humans have on the planet. And right now, we're in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event in the planet's 4.5 billion-year history. But ...

We're in the midst of the Earth’s sixth mass extinction ... growing human population." [5]. So where does wildlife stand today in relation to 7.5 billion people? Worldwide, 12 percent of mammals, 12 ...