About 201 million years ago the Triassic-Jurrasic extinction event (also called the end-Triassic) took place and some 76% of all species (marine and terrestrial) went extinct and about 20% of all existing taxonomic families were lost.
The extinctions that took place during this period really paved the way for the rise of the dinosaurs. It is hypothesized that climate change and rising sea levels are largely to blame for this mass extinction event.
Some studies have estimated that the rifting (coming apart) of the supercontinent Pangea may have released up to 100,000 gigatons of CO2 which could have raised the average air temperature by 10-15 ºC and acidified the world’s oceans.
Other studies have said that the methane trapped in permafrost was released as the ice melted which caused the earth’s atmosphere to warm, similarly to what is happening in modern times.
Either way, many creatures could not cope with these changes. In particular, many sea-dwelling animals went extinct during this period as they were unable to continue building their shells in the acidified oceans.
This is an image of Ceratities, which belonged to the order Ceratitida which went extinct at the end of the Triassic. A ceratite is an ammonite-like creature with undulating suture lines on their shells
But it was not just the shell-building sea-creatures that suffered during these climatic changes at the end of the Triassic period…
Nothosaurs are an extinct group of marine reptiles that lived in a similar way to modern seals, catching prey in the water but also able to come onto the shore. Known only from the Triassic, they were overtaken in the Jurassic by their fully ocean-going relatives the plesiosaurs
Today, we also have to contend with melting permafrost releasing methane into our atmosphere. Permafrost is land that remained frozen all year round, but with warming temperatures reaching Siberia, methane is leaking from the thawing earth
A heat wave in 2020 saw large amounts of methane being released from limestone along rock formations in the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin, several hundred miles north of the Arctic circle. Temperatures raised 6 ºC warmer than average
Currently permafrost overs 65% of Russian land, but warming of the land is now 70 years ahead of projections which could be pushing us towards and irreversible tipping point if too much methane is released
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There were once many native species of Polynesian tree snails found across the French Polynesian islands, but now species like P. dentifera and P. hebe are Extinct in the Wild.
Extinct in the wild means that there are no, or no significant, wild populations remaining, but the species lives on in captive breeding programmes. In 1986 an international conservation initiative started to try to save this snail genus.
In 1967 the French Polynesian government allowed the import of giant African land snails to be used as a food source on the islands. However, some snails escaped and bred, quickly growing an invasive population.
Did your parents always tell you not to play with your food? Well, at our special #MeatTheFuture Late Night event, you’ll have the chance to do just that!
Checkout these fun food-themed games in the thread below!
Join us for talks, drinks, snacks, and activities that will give you some ‘food for thought’ about the impacts of animal agriculture and meat consumption on people and the planet.
Fancy walking in the shoes of a dairy farmer with a daring game of skill and chance? You’ll have the opportunity to play ‘Grade Up To Elite Cow’ with @TheMERL at our Late Night Event.
Pangolins are the most internationally traded non-human animal on the planet. There are eight species of pangolin found in Asia and Africa and all are threatened with extinction. This is a Sunda pangolin which is found across SE Asia.
Pangolins are hunted both for their meat and for their scales which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Pangolin scales are made of keratin, the same as our hair and nails, and have no medicinal qualities.
Despite the fact that international trade of all 8 species of pangolin has been banned since 2016, they are still heavily trafficked around the planet. The Sunda pangolin is classes as Critically Endangered.
Probably the most well known of all major extinction events is the Cretaceous-Paleogene, also called the K-Pg, extinction event which happened about 66 million years ago. About 80% of all species were eliminated.
Nearly all dinosaurs and many marine invertebrates went extinct during this time. In fact, the only lines of archosaurs (the group that contains dinos, birds, and crocodilians) that survived were those that led to modern birds and crocodilians
Since the 1980s the leading theory for the main cause of the K-Pg extinction is that of the famous ‘asteroid theory’…
About 252 million years ago the largest known extinction events occurred, the Permian-Trassic. Also known as the ‘Great Dying’ an estimated 96% of all species went extinct during this period.
Ecosystems on land were dominated by a group of animals called Therapsids. It included many of the first megaherbivores and carnivores as well as smaller creatures
One you might recognise from the Museum is the Diictodon. This burrowing creature was the size of a small dog and its fossil remains have been found in what is now South Africa, and Zambia.
The Late Devonian not only suffered from a protracted extinction event, but was marked by low speciation (meaning that fewer new species were evolving at this time than average).
About 375 to 360 million years ago the Devonian period experienced elevated rates of extinction that lasted as long as 20 million years. Evidence has suggested that this rise in extinction rates was caused by a dramatic decrease…
…in stratospheric ozone and a warming climate. When the ozone layer was striped away, possibly by a nearby supernova which would have accelerated cosmic rays and delivered ionizing radiation to the Earth’s surface.