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Extinction

Species ending, currently at a rate that has a geological name.

16
in nature
9:29
average
152 min
in total
23
across the network
Extinction across the network →
All briefs16
8:19

Insular dwarfism

Dwarfing isn’t decay — it’s evolution’s fastest shortcut to survival in a cage of land.
9:54

Extinction event

Extinction events are not tragedies. They are statistical signals in rock—measured, corrected, and defined by loss, not lament.
7:56

Adaptive radiation

Adaptive radiation is not evolution’s big bang — it’s a tightly constrained diagnostic tool, and it fails the moment you drop trait utility.
9:27

Chinese giant salamander

It’s not one species—it’s at least five, all collapsing into hybrid soup while vanishing from the streams that made them.
9:19

Coconut crab

It abandoned the sea, dropped the shell, and took over the coconut palm’s domain — but lost ground to people every time they showed up.
8:47

Coelacanth

A fish that vanished from fossils 66 million years ago—and reappeared in a fish market.
9:30

Giant anteater

A knuckle-walking insect vacuum that carries its baby on its back—and vanishes where fire and farms spread.
11:32

Ginkgo

A plant that outlived dinosaurs by 200 million years — and still only grows wild in one country.
9:40

Iberian lynx

A wild cat that survived only because we rebuilt its food web — and still cannot eat anything else.
9:46

Saiga antelope

A nose built for ice-age winds now struggles with modern dust storms—and poachers’ knives.