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About Species

About Species. A species is one of the basic units of biological classification. A species can be loosely defined as a group of individual organisms that have very similar appearance, anatomy, physiology and genetics.

What WWF is trying to do is to make sure that those species that we have the least of are not lost forever - we've already lost too many as it is.

It could be...

...a mammal, a tree, a coral, a fungus, an insect or a sponge (or any one of a gazillion other forms that life takes).

They can be found in near-to boiling water, sulphurous sludge, frozen wastelands, underground rivers, spiny forests, perilous cliffs or living almost all their life in mid-air.Together we and them make up life on this planet.
  • And altogether we call this range and breadth of life 'biodiversity'.
  • WWF's mission is make sure we don't lose this marvellous array of life, this biodiversity.

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Priority Species

WWF is focusing efforts on a select group of priority species that are especially important to biodiversity.

How much diversity of life is on this Earth?

According to the IUCN(International Union for the Conservation of Nature), humans know about an estimated 1,562,663 different life forms on this planet. This includes:
  • 5,416 mammals
  • 16,000 mushrooms or fungi
  • 29,300 fish
  • 950,000 insects
  • 287,655 plants
Many experts feel we have still to discover many, many more species - some estimates say we have yet to discover and describe millions of 'new' lifeforms.

Of the 1.5 million species, what needs saving?

The IUCN maintains the red list, which lists 16,118 endangered species. See some of their photos.
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What does Endangered mean?

Officially, threatened species are those listed as Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN) or Vulnerable (VU).

Practically this means:

  • Critically Endangered (CR): A species facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
  • Endangered (EN): A species considered to be facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild.
  • Vulnerable (VU): A species considered to be facing a high risk of extinction in the wild.

How a Royal Bengal tiger is classified

Kingdom
Animalia		 Phylum
Chordata
Class
Mammalia		 Order
Carnivora
Family
Felidae		 Genus
Panthera
Species
P. tigris		 Sub-species
P. tigris tigris

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