Humans are driving the loss of entire branches of the “Tree of Life,” warning of the threat of a sixth mass extinction.
The study is largely based on the species listed as extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and focuses on vertebrate species (excluding fish).
Out of some 5,400 genera – which comprises some 34,600 species – 73 had become extinct in the last 500 years.
Based on the extinction rate in the previous million years we would have expected to lose two genera. But we lost 73.
A mass extinction defined as the loss of 75 per cent of species over a short period of time.