NEVERMORE

A Memorial to the Species Extinct at Human Hands

KNOWN EXTINCTIONS

Scientists have formally described and named some 2.1 to 2.5 million species of life on Earth. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List has assessed the health of more than 175,000 of these, roughly 7%.

Some 50,000 species—28%—are threatened with extinction.

The process of determining extinction is complex and difficult and can take years or decades. Of the assessed species, 0 are already categorized as extinct, extinct in the wild, possibly extinct, or possibly extinct in the wild.

Meantime the vast majority of life on Earth—somewhere between 8.7 million and unknown trillions of species—have yet to be assessed at all.

Each one of the bright points below marks one of the 0 extinct species. Select one to read its record.

UNKNOWN EXTINCTIONS

An estimated hundreds of thousands to millions more species have vanished during the last 10,000 years without their extinctions ever being witnessed or recorded. Each point marks the light of a unique species gone forever.

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