SPECIES

SPECIES

1.There are an estimated five to thirty million species of living organisms on our planet but only about two million have been described. Though nobody knows for certain, about forty to hundred species are believed to become extinct every singled day.

2.There are about three times as many species of insects as of all the other animals put together. Only about seven lac of the insect species are described and named as yet.

3.Of all the species identified on Earth, there are only about four thousand mammals and nine thousand birds, while there are around a million insects. Out of these million insect species,a third are beetles. In fact, the number of kinds of beetles is more than the number of plant species!

4.Of the roughly two million species classified to date, about twelve thousand species of plants and animals are known to be endangered or face a high risk of extinction in the near future.

5.Since the year 1600, species extinction began to occur at fifty to hundred times the average estimated normal rate. It is now expected to rise to between thousand and ten thousand times the normal rate.

6.Today, more than thirty one thousand plant and animal species face extinction.

7.By the mid-seventeenth century, human population was about four hundred and fifty million and seven animal species were extinct. By the mid-eighteenth century, human population became five hundred and fifty million and eleven more species were extinct. By 1850, we numbered about nine hundred million and twenty seven animal species were extinct.

Now we are about six thousand million humans and in this century we have lost about sixty eight  animal species. Out of these, sixty four species disappeared between 1900 and 1960, Which means conservation is helping. But the number of species dangerously close to extinction is still very large.

8.In the history of the Earth, there have been five periods of mass extinctions as  recognized by the scientists. During these mass extinctions, a large number of the species on Earth have become extinct. The most massive extinction occurred about two hundred and fifty million years ago when about eighty percent of the species on earth died out.

9.The most well-known extinction happened about sixty five million years ago when it is believed that an asteroid hit the Earth, throwing up so much dust in the atmosphere that is led to the death of about seventy percent of the species, including the dinosaurs.

10.Vultures in India are endangered due to a mystery virus and also due to shrinking nesting sites. Increased air traffic also threatens vultures which are nature's scavengers and natural rodent controllers.

11.Seven out of the thirteen great whale species are still endangered or vulnerable after decades of protection.

12.The major causes of danger to the whales are collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear, intensive oil and gas development in their feeding grounds and other hazards like toxic contamination.

13.The giant panda still remains an endangered species after decades of conservation efforts. This peaceful, bamboo-eating member of the bear family faces a number of threats. It's forest habitat, in the mountainous area of southwest China, is fragmented and the giant panda populations are small and isolated from each other. Meanwhile, poaching remains an ever present threat. There are an estimated one thousand and six hundred giant pandas in the wild.

14.Both the African and Asian elephants are in danger. They are illegally hunted for there ivory, and are being forced out of their habitats by the logging and clearing of forests for farming.

15.The tiger is also endangered. In the past century, we have lost three of eight tiger

subspecies. The Bali, Caspian and Javan tigers are extinct, and the South China tiger is endangered. The tiger in India faces danger from poachers and the loss of forests.

16.Strange as it may sound today, rhinoceroses once roamed throughout Eurasia and Africa, and were known to early Europeans who depicted them in cave paintings. Now, very few survive outside protected sanctuaries like the one in Kaziranga in Assam. Kaziranga is a rare success story in conservation.

17.Most of the ape species are found in Africa and in areas civil wars are raging. This makes their conservation extremely difficult. One of the major dangers facing the Africans apes is the sale of their meat. This was used by the tribes in the forest areas till recently but it's sale has now become a major commercial  enterprise.

18.Many endangered orangutans in Indonesia are facing a triple-edged tragedy-immediate death by fire caused by illegal loggers; death from poachers if they escape the fires; or death by starvation because the fruit trees on which they rely will take several years to recover.

19.Six of the seven species of marine turtles are listed as endangered or critically endangered, and the outlook is increasingly grim. The major cause of their decline are getting trapped in the nets and long-lines of fishing fleets, pollution and diseases. This means fewer and fewer turtles are living long enough to reproduce, and hence, their numbers are declining rapidly.

20.Desert locusts periodically invade parts of northern Africa and cause a lot of destruction. A typical locusts swarm has millions of insects and covers several  kilometers.

21.The locust is very destructive; a ton of locusts can eat the same amount of food in a day as two thousand and five hundred humans. Adult locusts can fly over two hundred kilometers in one day. In 2004, in Mauritania alone, they destroyed eighty percent of the crops.

22.Every year, during the winter months of the Northern Hemisphere, the Arctic tern flies eighteen kilometers south, from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle! This way it catches both the  Arctic and the Antarctic summers.

23.Pigeons navigate by using the magnetic field of the Earth while sparrows use certain stars to navigate.

24.The American turkey vulture is a very useful bird. It helps oil pipeline engineers in tracing leaks from underground oil pipelines!

The leaking oil smells like vultures food and the birds cluster around the spot where the pipeline is leaking, showing the engineers where to dig!

25.Polar bears are so well insulated that they have to deliberately move slowly so that they don't get overheated!

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