Every year at the Oscars, there is a memorial service – a collection of memories of filmmakers who have passed away around the world over the past year. Stephen Hawking, Stan Lee, Jin Yong... In 2018 we lost a lot of important people in various fields. But let's not forget that humans aren't the only species on Earth. 2018 is also a catastrophic year of species extinctions worldwide, the impact of which is likely to last millions of years, and as the year comes to an end, we should also commemorate those species that disappeared in the past year.
Eastern Cougar
The first obituary of the wild species belonged to a movie star: Spix's Macaw in Rio Adventure. The star species from Rio de Janeiro with bright blue feathers has now been declared extinct in the wild. About 100 birds are still there, but all are kept in cages.
Along with the blue macaw are the lesser-known Alagoas Foliage-gleaner, the Cryptic Treehunter and the Poo-uli. A recent study by biologists at BirdLife International suggests that these species are only 0.1 percent likely to survive — a number low enough to push their survival status from critically endangered to "extinct."
Stuart Butchart, chief scientist of the International Bird Society, said: "Human activity is the ultimate driver of the extinction of almost all species in recent times. ”
Senli logging is undoubtedly one of the main reasons for the extinction of birds
There is no doubt that species on all continents are going extinct faster than ever before. Without coordinated protection measures, the proportion will continue to rise.
In addition to birds, the Eastern Cougar was also officially declared extinct in 2018, and it may have been 80 years since the last Eastern Cougar was killed in Maine. Sudan, the world's last remaining male northern white rhino, whose death reduced the species' global population to just two females. There are many other species, such as the 12 vaquitas that are now the only ones left, and it is only a matter of time before they disappear from the earth.
Porpoises
Sea McKeon, a professor of biology at St Mary's College of Maryland and host of the naturalist podcast, said, "We are on the verge of losing the vaquita. Full-blown extinction could come this year, or it could come next year, and it's just a matter of rolling the dice. ”
We're not just erasing some of the world's newest species — like the Sumatran orangutan , discovered in 2017 and already on the verge of extinction thanks to human industry. We're also killing ancient species: the Chinese giant salamanders, a "living fossil" species whose ancestors lived on Earth with Stegosaurus and Lepidocus, and although they survived for more than 250 million years, they are now on the brink of extinction, as are many of the world's most unique sharks and rays.
Chinese giant salamander
Also in 2018, a subspecies of the giraffe we are familiar with was listed as critically endangered for the first time; almost all lemurs are doomed; insects are equally not optimistic, in the United States, we have lost 97% of the Western monarch butterfly, and the reptile species in South America is rapidly decreasing.
"Insects, while unremarkable, keep the world running in an indispensable way," McKeon said, "and it should be frightening that we're drastically cutting their species numbers these days." ”
St. Quentin kangaroo
However, 2018 wasn't entirely hopeless, when mountain gorillas were rescued from critical endangerment; wild black rhinos returned to Chad for the first time in 50 years; the adorable San Quintin kangaroo rat was found to be alive and well after 30 years of presumed extinction; and the rare Mexican salamander (Lake Pátzcuaro salamande) survived the orders of the Mexican nuns.
Mexican salamander
By Katie Spalding
Compiler: Wu Tong
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