is anyone aware of an online (or offline) extinction tracker?

June 18, 2006 9:25 AM

extinction tracker? ... is anyone tracking the daily list of vanishing species from this planet? like some sort of online resource of known exctinctions as they happen?
posted by specialk420 to Religion & Philosophy (9 answers total)

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources has a comprehensive searchable database of threatened species including a "What's New?" page.
posted by youarenothere at 10:16 AM on June 18, 2006

How exactly would you know when an extinction "happens"?
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:19 AM on June 18, 2006

Response by poster: i was thinking that someone must be tracking last known appearances of a give species - that may or may not have been listed as threatened?

maybe someone needs to start such thing? extinctionwiki ?
posted by specialk420 at 11:42 AM on June 18, 2006

Isn't extinction only based on the known number remaining? Meaning that a species "has died out as far as we can tell," or that "if there's any more of them, we have no idea where they are." ?

Mankind is known for losing track of the remote and car keys. Who can trust any given human with finding all remaining members of a species in the whole world?
posted by vanoakenfold at 12:25 PM on June 18, 2006

I've looked for but have not found anything like this.
posted by salvia at 1:40 PM on June 18, 2006

Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake features an online game called Extinctathon where people compete in naming the genus and species of extinct animals.

Wikipedia mantains a list of extinct animals and extinct plants.
posted by furtive at 1:51 PM on June 18, 2006

And extinct birds.
posted by furtive at 1:53 PM on June 18, 2006

Maybe here?
posted by tellurian at 11:14 PM on June 18, 2006

Aren't most species extinctions of the insect variety?
posted by parallax7d at 11:33 PM on June 18, 2006