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A research published in the journal Global Change Biology said extreme heat due to climate change and land use change threatens to wipe out nearly 8,000 species of vertebrates including amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles. The paper assessed how future extreme heat events under different scenarios of thermal limits can potentially impact almost 30,000 species. Under the worst-case scenario, 8,000 species are estimated to face unsuitable conditions across 52 per cent of their range.
A study published in Science found two of Florida’s most important and iconic reef-building coral species had become functionally extinct across Florida’s coral reef, meaning too few of them remain to serve their previous ecological role.
The updated IUCN Red List shows three Arctic seal species facing heightened threats. The hooded seal (Cystophora cristata) has been moved from Vulnerable to Endangered, while the bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) and harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) have been downgraded from Least Concern to Near Threatened.
The latest update of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List confirms six species have moved into the Extinct category. These include the Christmas Island shrew (Crocidura trichura) and the cone snail (Conus lugubris), both lost since the late 1980s. Other confirmed extinctions include the slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris), last seen in Morocco in 1995 and Diospyros angulata, a tree species related to ebony, last recorded in the 1850s. Three Australian mammals — the marl (Perameles myosuros), the south-eastern striped bandicoot (Perameles notina) and the Nullarbor barred bandicoot (Perameles papillon) — as well as Delissea sinuata, a Hawaiian plant species, have been assessed for the first time and are already listed as Extinct.
The IUCN update in 2025 revealed that 1,256 of the 11,185 bird species assessed — or 11.5 per cent — are globally threatened. Of the 1,360 bird species reassessed by BirdLife International, 61 per cent now show declining population trends — up sharply from 44 per cent in 2016.
More than 1,000 species of fungi that are threatened with extinction, according to the IUCN update. The IUCN Red List now includes 169,420 species, of which 47,187 are threatened with extinction. The addition of 482 newly assessed fungi species brings their number on the IUCN Red List to 1,300, of which at least 411 are at risk of extinction.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warned that 26 per cent of Africa’s assessed freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction due to a variety of factors. Its report, titled “Africa’s Forgotten Fishes: And the Emergency Recovery Plan to Save Them”, cited overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution, climate change and invasive species as some of the factors threatening the continent’s over 3,200 known fish species, 28 of which were discovered last year.
A new scientific assessment has found that nearly 38 per cent of the world’s tree species are now facing extinction — meaning that over one in three tree species is at risk. Threatened tree species now outnumber threatened birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians combined.
In October 2024, the African penguin became the first penguin species in the world to be listed as critically endangered by IUCN. This is a sad record for Africa’s only penguin and means it is now just one step away from extinction.
This was first published in the State of India’s Environment 2026