The world’s wildlife may be in more trouble than scientists have reported so far, as new research published Thursday suggests.
Although scientists have assessed the status of more than 147,000 plants and animals, there are thousands of species considered “data deficient” for a complete assessment.
As a result, these species were not included in the list of threatened or endangered species, updated annually by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Among the underrated species are the orca, the oceanic predator known as the killer whale, alongside the lesser pichiciego, a species of armadillo that lives in Argentina, as well as nearly 200 species of bats across the planet.
But in some cases, the absence of data itself is a warning sign, suggesting that species may be hard to find because of declines in their populations, according to a team of international scientists who used data on environmental conditions and threats. human resources to map patterns of extinction hazard among assessed species.
The team then assessed the 7,699 underrated species and estimated that about 56% of them are facing conditions that likely put them at risk of extinction, says the study, published in the journal Communications Biology.
This is nearly double the 28% of global species classified as “threatened” by the IUCN.
