A summary of extinctions by country can be found at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, or you can search the IUCN Red List database.

Scientists certainly debate that question. They don't debate the question as to -- well, sorry. Let me sort of strike that and sort of rephrase everything. Extinction, for the most part, is a historical process. It's something that, for most of us, happen in the past. We do have examples of extinction that actually happened in the present time. And sometimes we can see how that's actually happening.

Outright genocide is one cause of language extinction. For example, when European invaders exterminated the Tasmanians in the early 19th century, an unknown number of languages died as well. Far more often, however, languages become extinct when a community finds itself under pressure to integrate with a larger or more powerful group.

We rely on bottles from the waste stream and are subject to their availability and quality. Sometimes we experience difficulty procuring certain bottles of sufficient quality in adequate quantity to continue a line of glassware. As a result, with great sadness, we must discontinue that particular offering.

Members of one species do not normally interbreed with members of other species in nature. Sometimes, members of different species, such as lions and tigers, can interbreed if kept together in captivity. But in nature, geographic isolation and differences in behavior, such as choice of habitat, keep these sorts of closely related animal species apart. Similarly, closely related species of plants can sometimes be hybridized by horticulturists, but these hybrids are rarely found in nature.

In Australia there are around 400 species but only approximately 10 are commonly abundant and represent a serious pest threat because of their nuisance biting or their ability to transmit disease. (BACK)

We are building a cellular level model of the rat Neocortical Column at the age of 2 weeks. This region has the most quantitative data and can also be tested rigorously in parallel with the simulations. Once we have built an accurate copy, we can use this column as a template to include neurons and connections from other brain regions, ages of the animal and species. In principal the template will allow us to build a neocortical column from any species.

Tell to us all you know about your fish and send us a picture if possible. We will try to help the best we can.

Among species? Well, I stated in my power point that I find it extremely unlikely based on the evidence that the animal phyla are related through common ancestry. Other biologists have said they're dubious of common ancestry at levels higher than that. The levels in between, I don't know. As a scientist I would have to say each case would have to be settled based on the evidence.

The fact that dinosaurs became extinct might suggest they had some "Achilles heel" which led to their downfall. But it seems it was just bad luck and they weren't alone. At the end of the Cretaceous Period all the dinosaur families, together with the pterosaurs and marine reptiles, as well as about 75 percent of all other species on earth went extinct.

Sterilisation, also known neutering, is a well-established and reliable method of preventing unwanted pets. It is a routine surgical procedure to remove the reproductive organs of animals. Sterilisation can be performed (or carried out) on male and female cats, dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs by a licensed veterinarian. In Singapore, 15,000-20,000 cats and dogs are put down yearly. Many of these could have been great family pets but there are just not enough homes for them.

The largest ever Giant African Land Snail is a species called Achatina achatina, and one individual grew to 15 inches long.

The availability of calcium in their diet determines if the shell is thick or thin. Many years ago in the 1930s juvenile shells of Arianta arbustorum, a common European land snail were raised under two diet conditions - calcium rich and calcium deficient. It was observed that both lots grew to the same size but those grown on the calcium rich diet had shells almost four times heavier than those grown on a calcium deficient diet.

Along the Nexican border of Texas and in West Texas, there exist native fire ants that are difficult to distinguish from their imported cousins. However, if you can see four tiny teeth on the mandible or jaw of a fire ants, it is S. invicta. Native species possess three teeth. Over East, Central and much of South Texas, the most common native fire ant, S. geminata, can be distinguished without examination of tiny details of anatomy.

Because the listening stations are already in place, other species can easily be monitored if tagged. We plan to tag summer flounder (fluke) in fall, and weakfish and bluefish later, all with much smaller, shorter duration tags.

A2: The animal listed under the ESA is the West Indian manatee which includes two subspecies, the Florida manatee ( Trichechus manatus latirostris ) and the Antillean manatee ( Trichechus manatus manatus ) .