Tag: USA

Gelingt Wissenschaftlern die Elfenbeinspecht-Wiederbelebung bis 2025?
Ivory-billed woodpeckers were found mainly in the southern United States. The main causes of their population decline are believed to be hunting and habitat loss. (© Doreen Fräßdorf, fotografiert im Natural History Museum in London, England, 2024)

Biotech Company Plans to Revive the Ivory-billed Woodpecker by 2025

The U.S. biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences announced on October 1st its plan to revive the ivory-billed woodpecker by 2025, amidst the ongoing debate about whether this iconic bird species is truly extinct. The ivory-billed woodpecker was once a keystone species in the forests of the southern United States, playing a

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Ausgestorbene Wandertaube: Jungvogel, Männchen, Weibchen
A depiction of the extinct passenger pigeon created between 1910 and 1914: a young bird (left), a male (middle) and a female (right). (© Louis Agassiz Fuertes, via Wikimedia Commons)

Passenger Pigeon

From the most common to an extinct bird species When European explorers reached eastern North America in the 16th century, they were amazed at the huge flocks of birds they found in the ancient forests. Compared to Europe, where large parts of the forests had already been cut down, they

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Rocky-Mountain-Heuschrecke oder Felsengebirgsschrecke
Illustration from 1902. Rocky Mountain locusts belong to the suborder of short-horned grasshoppers (Caelifera). (© Julius Bien (1826-1909) biography, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Rocky Mountain Locust

Record: A swarm of 12.5 trillion locusts The correct biological term for animals that form large groups is “swarm,” but when it comes to large assemblies of migratory locusts, the term “plague” is used because they not only migrate but also devastate entire regions. Migratory locusts differ from ordinary grasshoppers

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Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii)
The Key Largo tree cactus is now considered extinct in the United States. Small populations of this very rare plant species still exist in the Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. (© Luke Padon, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Loss in the USA: Key Largo tree cactus wiped out by climate change

Scientists have documented the first local extinction of a species caused by climate change and the associated rise in sea level. The Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii), which can grow up to seven meters tall and occurred in the U.S. only on the Florida Keys, has disappeared. This rare,

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Mücken in Hawaii zur Rettung des Hawaii-Sichelkleidervogels Hemignathus munroi
The ʻiʻiwi is among the species in Hawaii threatened by avian malaria, to which they have no natural immunity. The IUCN classifies the ʻiʻiwi as “endangered”. (© Photographer: Carter Atkinson, U.S. Geological Survey, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Saving the Last Honeycreepers: Millions of Mosquitoes in Hawaii to Prevent Extinction

For the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, the ʻula-ʻai-hāwane, and the black mamo, any help comes too late, but the still existing honeycreepers (Drepanidini) and numerous other bird species on the Hawaiian Islands can still be saved. An unusual measure could now secure the survival of the endangered species. The problem: Avian malaria

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vom Aussterben bedroht: Vaquita
The vaquita, or Gulf of California porpoise, is among the smallest whales in the world, at around one and a half meters long and weighing about 50 kilograms. (© Paula Olson, NOAA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Vaquita: New video footage of the rarest marine mammal in the world

The vaquita (Phocoena sinus) has been one of the most endangered mammals in the world since the extinction of the Chinese river dolphin (Baiji) in 2002. Recently, Sea Shepherd released the latest results of their most recent vaquita survey during a press conference. The environmental organization presented footage showing a

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Okanagana fumipennis Zikade
With the help of citizen scientists and the iNaturalist platform, the cicada Okanagana arctostaphylae, thought extinct, was rediscovered. The image shows the insect Okanagana fumipennis from the same genus. (© Patrick Alexander from Las Cruces, NM, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Rediscovered thanks to citizen science: cicada found again after 100 years

As National Geographic reported, the cicada species Okanagana arctostaphylae has been rediscovered more than a century after it was last seen. The discovery was made by nature observer Lucinda Collings Parker in her garden in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in California. Parker photographed the striking red cicada in

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Achatinella apexfulva
The extinct tree snail Achatinella apexfulva (top) at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Netherlands. The species epithet apexfulva means “yellow tip” and refers to the color of the shell. (© Naturalis Biodiversity Center, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Yellow-tipped Oahu tree snail

Hawaii’s first scientifically described snail The yellow-tipped Oahu tree snail (Achatinella apexfulva) is not only the first scientifically described snail of the Hawaiian archipelago but also the first officially declared extinct. The species was first described in 1789 by British sailor and explorer George Dixon, who acquired a traditional necklace

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Ovis canadensis auduboni
The only known photo of the Badlands bighorn. It shows Jim Hart from South Dakota holding an animal shot by Charley Jones in 1903 into the camera. An adult male could reach a weight of 160 kilograms. (© archived source link, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Badlands Bighorn

Wild sheep east of the Rocky Mountains Bighorn sheep are wild sheep that live mostly in mountains and sometimes in deserts and other dry regions of western North America. Both male and female animals have horns, although those of females are much smaller and do not twist like males, but

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Eurycea rathbuni
The Texas blind salamander (Eurycea rathbuni) belongs to the same genus as the Blanco blind salamander. Some scientists have occasionally suspected that the Texas and Blanco blind salamanders could be one and the same species. (© Ryan Hagerty/USFWS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Blanco Blind Salamander

Missing species have a hard time The last time anyone saw a Blanco blind salamander in the wild was in 1951. At the time, a gravel operation working north of the Texan city of San Marcos excavated a spring in the dry riverbed of the Blanco River. Some water seeped

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