Endangered Species
A personal project, still ongoing, about endangered species from around the world.
I’m illustrating animals of the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, to bring awareness about this issue.
The riverine rabbit one of the most endangered mammals in the world, with only around 500 living adults living in river basins in a small area of the Karoo Desert of South Africa. This rabbit is truly unique: is the only member of his genus, is nocturnal, and has an only baby per year. The decline of the population of the riverine rabbit is due to human action: alteration of his habitat, climate change, and hunt for entertainment. Also, structures on rivers, like dams, isolate the groups of rabbits from each other discouraging the population regeneration.
The African wild dog is the largest indigenous canine in Africa. It’s native to sub-Saharan Africa where it lives in packs.
Uniquely among social carnivores, the females rather than the males disperse from the natal pack once they grow up.
It was classified as endangered by the IUCN due to the decline of the populations due to habitat fragmentation, human persecution, and diseases.
Puffins are adorable birds nesting mainly on the coast of Iceland, Norway, Greenland, Newfoundland, and the Faroe Islands. In 2015 IUCN rated this species as “vulnerable” due to the rapid decline of the European puffin population.
The dugong is one of four living species of the order Sirenia and the only strictly herbivorous marine mammal.
It lives in the waters of some 40 countries and territories throughout the Indo-West Pacific.
The IUCN lists the dugong as a species vulnerable to extinction due to fishing-related fatalities, habitat degradation, and hunting.
The manatee is a herbivore, a mammal, and the largest surviving member of Sirenia. Did you know that manatees are related to elephants? This animal has excellent vocal communication abilities, he uses his snout covered in vibrissae for finding food and navigation through the coastal areas of Gulf of Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, Brazil. Unfortunately, this species is listed as vulnerable and decreasing by IUCN.
This heavy-bodied reptile with his peculiar snout lives in the coastal plain of the southeast of the United States (North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi). This species is listed as vulnerable by IUCN due to habitat loss and red imported fire ants that eat his eggs.
The Masai giraffe is the largest subspecies of giraffe, making it the tallest land animal on earth. Giraffes are considered endangered by the IUCN due to poaching and habitat loss.
This small butterfly is native to the Palos Verdes Peninsula in California and was thought to be extinct in 1983, but it was rediscovered in 1994. The survival of this specie depends on two types of plants only that are now scarce in his habitat due to housing development.
