Extinction

Birds given doses of a common pesticide lost significant body mass, fat stores

Common Pesticides Delay Songbird Migration, Trigger Significant Weight Loss

Within six hours of ingesting a high dose of pesticide, sparrows lost six percent of their body weight and 17 percent of their fat stores

An artist's depiction of an asteroid impacting the Earth.

What Happened the Day a Giant, Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Hit the Earth

Using rock cores from Chicxulub crater, geologists piece together a new timeline of the destruction that followed impact

Europe's cave bear population started crashing around 40,000 years ago—roughly the time period when modern humans arrived on the continent

Ice Age Humans Likely Played Major Role in Cave Bears’ Extinction

Researchers have long debated whether human activity or climate change precipitated the species' demise

A Human-Sized Penguin Once Waddled Through New Zealand

The leg bones of Crossvallia waiparensis suggest it was more than five feet tall and weighed up to 176 pounds

A Crashed Spacecraft Might Have Put Earth's Most Indestructible Organisms on the Moon

The microscopic tardigrades were part of a lunar library sent aboard the Beresheet lander that crashed last April

Neonics are responsible for 92 percent of the increase in U.S. agricultural toxicity

Toxic Pesticides Are Driving Insect ‘Apocalypse’ in the U.S., Study Warns

The country's agricultural landscape is now 48 times more toxic to insects than it was 25 years ago

Saber-toothed cats likely ambushed plant-eating prey in forests, not open grassland

Fossils Reveal Why Coyotes Outlived Saber-Toothed Cats

Contrary to popular belief, carnivorous cats and canines probably didn't hunt the same limited pool of prey

Dead vaquita entangled in a gillnet set for Totoaba

There Are ‘At Most’ 19 Vaquitas Left in the Wild

An alarming new study documents the continued decline of the critically endangered porpoise—but it may still be possible to save the species

Unlike modern beavers, which use their sharp-edged teeth to chop up trees and build dams, mega-sized ones were unable to alter their environment to fit their needs

Why Did These Human-Sized Beavers Go Extinct During the Last Ice Age?

A new study suggests the giant beavers disappeared after their wetland habitats dried up, depriving the species of its aquatic plant-based diet

The prehistoric school seems to adhere to the laws of attraction and repulsion, with members maintaining enough distance between neighbors without straying too far from the group

Did This Fossil Freeze a Swimming School of Fish in Time?

The 50-million-year-old slab of limestone suggests that fish have been swimming in unison for far longer than previously realized

France outlawed ortolan hunting in 1999, but the ban was rarely enforced until 2007 and remains unevenly implemented

Ortolans, Songbirds Enjoyed as French Delicacy, Are Being Eaten Into Extinction

Hunters illegally catch some 30,000 of the 300,000 ortolans that pass through southwestern France every migration season

Participants use magnetic landscape tiles to build a perfect planet

This Board Game Asks Players to Craft a Perfect Planet

In 'Planet', players compete to create worlds capable of sustaining the highest possible level of biodiversity

A starfish floating on the coral reef, Dominican Republic.

One Million Species at Risk of Extinction, Threatening Human Communities Around the World, U.N. Report Warns

A global assessment compiled by hundreds of scientists found that humans are inflicting staggering damage on the world’s biodiversity

If listed under the Endangered Species Act, giraffes would become eligible for federal funding aimed at conservation, and limits would be placed on the import of the animal's body parts

The United States May List Giraffes as an Endangered Species

Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans to conduct in-depth review of the popular animal's threat status

Researchers analyzed the orthodentin and the cementum in the sloth tooth. Pits mark locations where samples were collected for analysis.

Found: The Remains of a 27,000-Year-Old Sloth That Got Stuck in a Sinkhole

The sloth’s tooth, which was discovered in a deep pool in Belize, is helping scientists learn about the animal’s diet and the climate in which it lived

The Somali ostrich is prized for its meat, feathers, leather and eggs

Human Hunting Is Driving the World's Biggest Animals Toward Extinction

A new analysis found that 70 percent of Earth's largest creatures are decreasing in number, while 59 percent are at risk of extinction

This Ancient Reptile Had a Small Head, Tiny Eyes and a Platypus-Like Bill

Even paleobiologists find Eretmorhipis carrolldongi strange

The Last Wild Caribou of the Lower 48 Has Been Placed in Captivity

It will soon be released into another herd, but scientists do not know if caribou will even again inhabit the contiguous United States

R.I.P., George.

A Hawaiian Snail Named George, Believed to Be the Last of His Species, Has Died

His death highlights a larger concern: Scientists estimate that 90 percent of terrestrial snail diversity on the Hawaiian Islands has been lost

Although the asteroid strike that created Chicxulub crater in modern-day Mexico dramatically affected life on Earth, the fiery crash isn't the whole story of the fate of the dinosaurs.

We Still Don’t Know Why the Reign of the Dinosaurs Ended

The asteroid strike on the Yucatán Peninsula 66 million years ago is only part of the story

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