There are 22,413 species deemed at risk of extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). If some ambitious person tried to read out their names without any breaks it would take at least half a day. But that would be just the start. The IUCN has assessed the status of only 76,199 of the 1.7 million species of animals, plants, fungi and protists on Earth that have been described by scientists. And some suggest that at least five times more species still wait to be discovered. Many of these are also threatened, and it would take months to read out all of their names. Except that they do not, of course, have names. In 80 years the number of humans has doubled whilst the number of creatures in the wild has halved.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 07:54:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015