10 Animals That May Go Extinct in the Next 10 Years
The Dodo may soon have some august company
10 Animals That May Go Extinct in the Next 10 Years
- Black Rhinoceros Diceros bicornis Black rhinos, like their larger white cousins, are actually grayish in color. Their horns are highly valued for use as ornaments and for their "medicinal" properties, even though they are simply made of keratin, the same protein found in fingernails and hair... © iStockphoto/Mark Weiss
- Chinese Alligator Alligator sinensis This secretive mini-alligator, which rarely grows longer than two meters or heavier than 40 kilograms, dwells in the wetlands of the lower reaches of the Yangtze—the same river that sheltered the rare and probably now extinct Chinese river dolphin... © iStockphoto/Matt Matthews
- Seychelles Sheath-Tailed Bat Coleura seychellensis There may be only 50 to 100 of these furry flying mammals left on the planet. They are endemic to Silhouette, Mahé, Praslin and La Digue, islands in the Seychelles archipelago, located in the Indian Ocean northeast of Madagascar... Justin Gerlach, Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles
- Wild Bactrian Camel Camelus bactrianus This shy ancestor of domesticated camels lives in the arid Gashun Gobi region of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China and southwestern Mongolia. Unlike Arabian camels, which are distinguished by one prominent hump, Bactrian camels have two humps... © iStockphoto/David Kerkhoff
- Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat Lasiorhinus krefftii Wombats are Australian marsupials with burly builds, stocky legs and powerful claws for burrowing underground tunnels. The northern hairy-nosed variety is the largest wombat, growing as long as one meter and as heavy as 40 kilograms... EPA, Queensland-2007
