East Asia - Artensterben

Some of the rarest animal species in the world: from the nearly extinct vaquita to the red wolf, the Yangtze giant softshell turtle, the Okinawa spiny rat, and the northern white rhino. These species now survive only in tiny populations.

8. May 2026 Doreen Fräßdorf

Fewer than 50 individuals: These animal species have almost disappeared

There are animal species worldwide whose populations have now shrunk to just a few dozen or even only single individuals. Many of them stand on the brink of extinction and survive only in small refuges or through elaborate conservation programs. The main cause of their decline is humans, for example

Tokara-Laubsänger / Tokara leaf warbler (Phylloscopus tokaraensis)

A singing male Tokara leaf warbler (Phylloscopus tokaraensis). The species is restricted to a few islands of Japan's Tokara Archipelago south of Kyushu. Such island endemics often occupy only very small habitats and are therefore especially vulnerable to environmental change. Image: Per Alström, Uppsala University, CC BY, via EurekAlert!

28. April 2026 Doreen Fräßdorf

Hidden diversity: Four newly recognized bird species from 2026

Even today, new bird species are still being discovered and described, although birds are among the comparatively well-studied animal groups. In many cases, however, these are not completely unknown animals, but species that were overlooked or misclassified for a long time. Only modern methods such as genetic analyses and bioacoustic

Wolterstorff-Molch (Cynops woltertorffi) - Natural History Museum (London)

The Yunnan lake newt was named by George Albert Boulenger (1905) in honor of the German geologist and zoologist Willy Wolterstorff, who worked extensively on the systematics of salamanders and newts. (© "1946.9.6.32-pic1" - Cynops wolterstorffi (Boulenger, 1905) Collected in China by The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London, CC BY 4.0, via GBIF)

3. April 2026 Doreen Fräßdorf

Yunnan lake newt—a poorly documented extinction

A newt with a fish-like appearance At the beginning of the 20th century, John Graham collected several animal species previously unknown to science in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan. He sent the finds to London, where they were examined by George Albert Boulenger at the Natural History Museum. Boulenger,

Illustration of the Chinese river dolphin (baiji)—once a characteristic resident of the Yangtze. With its long, narrow snout and the sickle-shaped dorsal fin, the baiji was unmistakable. Today, the species is considered “functionally extinct”. (© Doc Taxon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

1. August 2025 Doreen Fräßdorf

Chinese river dolphin: Is the baiji still alive?

The last confirmed sighting of the baiji, also known as the Chinese river dolphin, is now more than 20 years ago. The IUCN therefore classifies the species as “Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct)”. Scientifically, its continued existence is considered extremely unlikely, but occasional sighting reports and video recordings at least leave

The Old World swallowtail, one of Europe's largest and most impressive butterflies, is widespread across the Palearctic and represented by numerous subspecies. Its subspecies endemic to Taiwan was likely wiped out by the 1999 earthquake. (© Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

24. November 2024 Doreen Fräßdorf

Taiwan: How an earthquake wiped out a butterfly species

An earthquake in 1999 may have wiped out the Taiwanese swallowtail subspecies Papilio machaon sylvina forever. According to a recent study in the journal PLOS, this may be the first documented case in which an earthquake caused the extinction of a butterfly. The Old World swallowtail (Papilio machaon), one of

The Hokkaido wolf, one of two wolf subspecies that went extinct in Japan, was captured in this illustration by the English zoologist St. George Mivart in 1890. (© Mivart, St. George Jackson (30 November 1827 – 1 April 1900), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

18. August 2024 Doreen Fräßdorf

Hokkaidō Wolf

Harmful animals in Hokkaido In Japanese mythology, both the extinct Honshu wolf and the Hokkaido wolf, also known as the Ezo wolf, are revered as benevolent beings. One legend, similar to the Roman myth of Romulus and Remus, recounts that a son of Fujiwara no Hidehira, a 12th-century Japanese noble

The rediscovered population of Kobe thismia is located in an area of less than 20 square meters, so its future survival is not guaranteed. Because of their strange-looking flowers, Thismia are known in English as "fairy lanterns" (Feen-Laternen). (© Kenji Suetsugu, Osamu Nakanishi, Tomiki Kobayashi, Nobihira Kurosaki, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

28. February 2023 Doreen Fräßdorf

Japan: “Fairy Lantern” Still Exists After All

As the team led by Kenji Suetsugu from the Japanese university in Kobe recently reported in the journal Phytotaxa, the Kobe thismia (Thismia kobensis), a plant species believed to have been extinct, was rediscovered in Japan’s Hyogo Prefecture after more than 30 years. The holotype and only known specimen of

Illustration by the Japanese painter Hasegawa Settan showing a Japanese sea lion that washed ashore in 1823 near the city of Karatsu on the island of Kyūshū. (© Hasegawa Settan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

13. June 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Japanese Sea Lion

One of the most recently extinct marine mammals At almost the same time and for the same reasons, two marine mammals were wiped out in different places in the 20th century: the Caribbean monk seal and the Japanese sea lion. Both were hunted commercially: lamp oil was extracted from their

Drawing of a Chinese paddlefish from 1868. The frontal portion made up around one-third of the fish's total length. Chinese paddlefish reached lengths of more than three meters and weights of up to 300 kilograms. (© Muséum d'histoire Naturelle, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

8. August 2021 Doreen Fräßdorf

Chinese Paddlefish

An ancient swimming fossil in the Yangtze River The Chinese paddlefish and its relatives were already swimming through Earth’s waters more than 100 million years ago. This freshwater predator, said to have reached lengths of seven meters and weights of several thousand pounds, survived the mass extinction 66 million years