Extinction News
September 11, 2025
Top Headlines
Sep. 9, 2025 — Tiny ocean microbes called Prochlorococcus, once thought to be climate survivors, may struggle as seas warm. These cyanobacteria drive 5% of Earth’s photosynthesis and underpin much of the marine food web. A decade of research shows they thrive ...
Aug. 21, 2025 — Planting more trees can help cool the planet and reduce fire risk—but where they are planted matters. According to UC Riverside researchers, tropical regions provide the most powerful climate benefits because trees there grow year-round, absorb ...
Aug. 14, 2025 — Over 15 years of fossil excavations in Tanzania and Zambia have revealed a vivid portrait of life before Earth s most devastating mass extinction 252 million years ago. Led by the University of ...
Aug. 9, 2025 — Over 300 million years ago, Illinois teemed with life in tropical swamps and seas, now preserved at the famous Mazon Creek fossil site. Researchers from the University of Missouri and geologist ...
Aug. 7, 2025 — Deep beneath the ocean's surface, a groundbreaking DNA study reveals that the deep sea is far more globally connected than once thought. By analyzing thousands of brittle stars preserved in museum collections, scientists discovered these ancient ...
Aug. 6, 2025 — A prehistoric predator changed its diet and body size during a major warming event 56 million years ago, revealing how climate change can reshape animal behavior, food chains, and survival ...
Aug. 4, 2025 — Glasswing butterflies may all look alike, but behind their transparent wings hides an evolutionary story full of intrigue. Researchers discovered that while these butterflies appear nearly identical to avoid predators, they produce unique pheromones ...
Aug. 4, 2025 — An intriguing new study reveals that over 80% of parasites found in the ancient poo of New Zealand’s endangered kākāpō have vanished, even though the bird itself is still hanging on. Researchers discovered this dramatic parasite decline by ...
Aug. 3, 2025 — Every time someone snaps a wildlife photo with iNaturalist, they might be fueling breakthrough science. From rediscovering lost species to helping conservation agencies track biodiversity and invasive threats, citizen observations have become vital ...
July 21, 2025 — Gene editing may hold the key to rescuing endangered species—not just by preserving them, but by restoring their lost genetic diversity using DNA from museum specimens and related species. Scientists propose a visionary framework that merges ...
July 16, 2025 — Hawaiian coral reefs may face unprecedented ocean acidification within 30 years, driven by carbon emissions. A new study by University of Hawai‘i researchers shows that even under conservative climate scenarios, nearshore waters will change more ...
July 10, 2025 — People can intuitively sense how biodiverse a forest is just by looking at photos or listening to sounds, and their gut feelings surprisingly line up with what scientists ...
Latest Headlines
updated 10:02am EDT
Sep. 2, 2025 — Fossilized bones in Brazil reveal that deadly infections plagued sauropods 80 million years ago. Researchers uncovered unhealed lesions consistent with osteomyelitis, pointing to pathogens spread ...
Aug. 30, 2025 — Spicomellus afer, a newly analyzed Jurassic ankylosaur from Morocco, is overturning scientists’ understanding of dinosaur evolution. Unlike any other known creature, it carried a collar of ...
Aug. 29, 2025 — Scientists have identified a new giant lizard, Bolg amondol, from Utah’s Kaiparowits Formation, named after Tolkien’s goblin prince. Part of the monstersaur lineage, Bolg reveals that multiple ...
Aug. 29, 2025 — Seventy million years ago, southern Patagonia was home to dinosaurs, turtles, and mammals—but also to a fierce crocodile-like predator. A newly ...
Aug. 25, 2025 — A chance glance at a museum display has led to the first-ever discovery of an ichthyosaur fossil in western Japan, dating back around 220 million years. Initially mistaken for a common bivalve ...
Aug. 14, 2025 — A groundbreaking fossil discovery in the Grand Canyon has unveiled exquisitely preserved soft-bodied animals from the Cambrian period, offering an unprecedented glimpse into early life more than 500 ...
Aug. 9, 2025 — A fossilized Caribbean dirt ant, Basiceros enana, preserved in Dominican amber, reveals the species ancient range and overturns assumptions about its ...
Aug. 9, 2025 — The newly described Mirasaura grauvogeli from the Middle Triassic had a striking feather-like crest, hinting that complex skin appendages arose far earlier than previously believed. Its bird-like ...
Aug. 5, 2025 — Tyrannosaurus rex might be the most famous meat-eater of all time, but it turns out it wasn’t the only way to be a terrifying giant. New research shows that while T. rex evolved a skull designed ...
Aug. 4, 2025 — In a surprising twist of conservation success, a U.S. Air Force bombing range in Florida has become a sanctuary for endangered species like the ...
Earlier Headlines
July 29, 2025 — In the quest to understand how and why early humans started walking on two legs, scientists are now looking to chimpanzees living in dry, open savannah-like environments for clues. A new study ...
July 29, 2025 — A fish thought to be evolution’s time capsule just surprised scientists. A detailed dissection of the coelacanth — a 400-million-year-old species often called a “living fossil” — revealed ...
July 18, 2025 — Tourists feeding wild elephants may seem innocent or even compassionate, but a new 18-year study reveals it s a recipe for disaster. Elephants in Sri Lanka and India have learned to beg for snacks ...
July 24, 2025 — A tiny, overlooked wrist bone called the pisiform may have played a pivotal role in bird flight and it turns out it evolved far earlier than scientists thought. Fossils from bird-like dinosaurs in ...
July 8, 2025 — In the remote reaches of Arizona s Petrified Forest National Park, scientists have unearthed North America's oldest known pterosaur a small, gull-sized flier that once soared above Triassic ...
July 8, 2025 — Hovering fish aren’t loafing—they burn twice resting energy to make micro-fin tweaks that counteract a natural tendency to tip, and body shape dictates just how costly the pause is. The discovery ...
July 6, 2025 — Immersing stressed volunteers in a 360° virtual Douglas-fir forest complete with sights, sounds and scents boosted their mood, sharpened short-term memory and deepened their feeling of ...
July 3, 2025 — When Siberian volcanoes kicked off the Great Dying, the real climate villain turned out to be the rainforests themselves: once they collapsed, Earth’s biggest carbon sponge vanished, CO₂ ...
June 27, 2025 — A groundbreaking study suggests that the famous Cambrian explosion—the dramatic burst of diverse animal life—might have actually started millions of years earlier than we thought. By analyzing ...
June 26, 2025 — South Australia’s tiny pygmy bluetongue skink is baking in a warming, drying homeland, so Flinders University scientists have tried a bold fix—move it. Three separate populations were shifted ...
June 24, 2025 — Exploration for deep-sea minerals in the Clarion Clipperton Zone threatens to disrupt an unexpectedly rich ecosystem of whales and dolphins. New studies have detected endangered species in the area ...
June 17, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered that fish biofluorescence a captivating ability to glow in vivid colors has ancient roots stretching back over 100 million years. This trait evolved independently in reef ...
June 14, 2025 — Ten thousand years after mastodons disappeared, scientists have unearthed powerful fossil evidence proving these elephant cousins were vital seed spreaders for large-fruited trees in South America. ...
June 14, 2025 — Study suggests that appetite for bushmeat -- rather than black market for scales to use in traditional Chinese medicine -- is driving West Africa's illegal hunting of one of the world's ...
June 13, 2025 — Despite Earth's most devastating mass extinction wiping out over 80% of marine life and half of land species, a group of early reptiles called archosauromorphs not only survived but thrived, ...
June 15, 2025 — Underground fungi may be one of Earth s most powerful and overlooked allies in the fight against climate change, yet most of them remain unknown to science. Known only by DNA, these "dark ...
June 10, 2025 — A prehistoric digestive time capsule has been unearthed in Australia: plant fossils found inside a sauropod dinosaur offer the first definitive glimpse into what these giant creatures actually ate. ...
June 10, 2025 — After millions of years of evolutionary isolation, Madagascar developed an unparalleled array of wildlife, and recent research has uncovered an unsung ecological hero: the lizard. Though often ...
June 12, 2025 — Reef "beauty salons" staffed by tiny cleaner fish aren t just for parasite removal they may also shape the microbial life of the entire ecosystem. A fascinating new study shows these ...
June 9, 2025 — For millions of years, large herbivores like mastodons and giant deer shaped the Earth's ecosystems, which astonishingly stayed stable despite extinctions and upheavals. A new study reveals that ...
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
- Did Humans Learn to Walk in Trees?
- 400-Million-Year-Old Fish Exposes Big Mistake in How We Understood Evolution
Friday, July 18, 2025
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
- North America’s Oldest Pterosaur Unearthed in Arizona’s Triassic Time Capsule
- Hovering Fish Burn Twice the Energy—study Shocks Scientists
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Saturday, June 14, 2025
- Fruit-Eating Mastodons? Ancient Fossils Confirm a Long-Lost Ecological Alliance
- Africa's Pangolin Crisis: The Delicacy That's Driving a Species to the Brink
Friday, June 13, 2025
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
- What a Dinosaur Ate 100 Million Years ago—Preserved in a Fossilized Time Capsule
- How Madagascar’s Lizards Became the Island’s Last Hope for Reforestation
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Monday, June 9, 2025
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Friday, June 6, 2025
Thursday, May 29, 2025
- Birds Nested in Arctic Alongside Dinosaurs
- Evolution of a Single Gene Allowed the Plague to Adapt, Survive and Kill Much of Humanity Over Many Centuries
- Does Planting Trees Really Help Cool the Planet?
- Amphibian Road Mortality Drops by Over 80% With Wildlife Underpasses, Study Shows
- Agriculture in Forests Can Provide Climate and Economic Dividends
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
- Trees Vs. Disease: Tree Cover Reduces Mosquito-Borne Health Risk
- Huge Sea-Urchin Populations Are Overwhelming Hawaii's Coral Reefs
- New Velvet Worm Species a First for the Arid Karoo
- Europe's Most Complete Stegosaurian Skull Unearthed in Teruel, Spain
- When the Forest Is No Longer a Home -- Forest Bats Seek Refuge in Settlements
- Even Birds Can't Outfly Climate Change
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
- Nordic Studies Show the Significance of Old-Growth Forests for Biodiversity
- The Ocean Seems to Be Getting Darker
Friday, May 23, 2025
- El Niño and La Niña Climate Swings Threaten Mangroves Worldwide
- Managing Surrogate Species, Providing a Conservation Umbrella for More Species
Thursday, May 22, 2025
- The Scent of Death? Worms Experience Altered Fertility and Lifespan When Exposed to Dead Counterparts
- New Study Reveals How Competition Between Algae Is Transforming the Gulf of Maine
- Scientists Have Figured out How Extinct Giant Ground Sloths Got So Big and Where It All Went Wrong
- Diversity Is Key to Ecosystem Stability
- Climate Change Poses Severe Threat to Bowhead Whale Habitat
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
- Forest Management Can Influence Health Benefits
- Thousands of Animal Species Threatened by Climate Change
Monday, May 19, 2025
- Bees Facing New Threats, Putting Our Survival and Theirs at Risk
- Capuchin Monkeys Develop Bizarre 'fad' Of Abducting Baby Howlers
Friday, May 16, 2025
- Heat-Tolerant Symbionts a Critical Key to Protecting Florida's Elkhorn Coral from Bleaching During Marine Heatwaves
- Very Different Mammals Follow the Same Rules of Behavior
- Language a Barrier in Biodiversity Work
Thursday, May 15, 2025
- Amazon Could Survive Long-Term Drought but at a High Cost
- Human Activity Reduces Plant Diversity Hundreds of Kilometers Away
- Scientists Use Fossils to Assess the Health of Florida's Largest Remaining Seagrass Bed: Surprisingly, It's Doing Well!
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
- Europe's Forest Plants Thrive Best in Light-Rich, Semi-Open Woodlands -- Kept Open by Large Herbivores
- Australia's Oldest Prehistoric Tree Frog Hops 22 Million Years Back in Time
- An Ink That Boosts Coral Reef Settlement by 20 Times
- UV Light and CT Scans Helped Scientists Unlock Hidden Details in a Beautifully-Preserved Fossil Archaeopteryx
- Genome of Near-Extinct Northern White Rhino Offers Hope for Reviving the Species
Monday, May 12, 2025
Friday, May 9, 2025
- First Fossil Evidence of Endangered Tropical Tree Discovered
- New Ancient Fish Species Earliest Known Salmon Ancestor
Thursday, May 8, 2025
- New Study Traces Sharp Regional Shifts in Ischemic Heart Disease Burden -- A Global Warning Signal
- Red Alert for Our Closest Relatives
- Just 30 Species of Tree Dominate World's Most Diverse Savanna
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
- Biologists Create a One-Stop Shop for World's Most Charismatic Plants, Ferns
- Pioneering Research Reveals Tree-Mendous Potential of Inexpensive Drones to Help Community Forests Flourish and Unlock Restoration Funding
- Fewer Parasites in the Indian River Lagoon Signal Big Ecosystem Problems
- Triassic Fossil Reveals Nature's Best Jaw for Hunting Fast Fish
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
- T. Rex's Direct Ancestor Crossed from Asia to North America
- Replanted Rainforests May Benefit from Termite Transplants
- AI Has Untapped Potential to Advance Biodiversity Conservation
Monday, May 5, 2025
- Halo Patterns Around Coral Reefs May Signal Resilience
- How Are They Biting? High Speed Video Reveals Unexpected Jaw Movements in Reef Fish
- Saving the Asian 'unicorn' -- If It Still Exists
- Ancient Poems Tell the Story of Charismatic River Porpoise's Decline Over the Past 1,400 Years
Friday, May 2, 2025
Thursday, May 1, 2025
- Study Shows How Millions of Bird Sightings Unlock Precision Conservation
- Intensifying Farmland Can Sometimes Degrade Biodiversity More Than Expansion
- Ptero Firma: Footprints Pinpoint When Ancient Flying Reptiles Conquered the Ground
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
- Deciphering the Migratory Behavior and Connectivity of Mediterranean and Atlantic Cory's Shearwaters
- From the Front Garden to the Continent: Why Biodiversity Does Not Increase Evenly from Small to Large
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Monday, April 28, 2025
- Elephant Instead of Wild Boar? What Could Have Been in Europe
- Want to Understand Grasslands? Look at the Bigger Picture
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
- Paying Fishers to Release Endangered Catches Can Aid Conservation, but Only If Done Right
- Nature Accounting in Colombia Makes Sound Economic Case for Protecting Native Ecosystems
- How Bacteria in Our Aging Guts Can Elevate Risk of Leukemia and Perhaps More
- What Rattlesnake Venom Can Teach Us About Evolution: New USF Study
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
Monday, April 21, 2025
- What If Mother Earth Could Sue for Mistreatment?
- Introduced Trees Are Becoming More Common in the Eastern United States, While Native Diversity Declines
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
- Secret to Crocodylian Longevity
- Experiment in Floodplain Forest: Using Tree Mortality to Support Oak Regeneration
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Monday, April 14, 2025
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
- European Bird Declines Linked to Range of Climatic Conditions Experienced
- Coral Reefs Exude Myriad Chemicals, Fueling Dynamic Microbial Recycling of Nutrients
- Prehistoric Rhinos Lived in Super-Herds