The World's 5 Rarest Animals

over the course of the Earth's history unthinkable numbers of organisms have disappeared forever and to some extent that's just the way the world works but some scientists think that today we are living through a mass extinction event that could rival some of the major wipeouts in the Earth's history for reasons ranging from a habitat destruction to climate change experts estimate the 27 thousand species vanished from the earth every year never to be seen again just one of them was Lonesome George the last of the Pinta island tortoise is in the Galapagos who died in 2012 after most of his brethren had been hunted now there are not any Pinta island tortoise these days lots of species are facing the same fate and we can't do justice to all of them but in honor of lonesome George today we're taking a look at what may be the 5 coolest rarest animals on earth number 5 the Iberian lynx it's hard to pin down the rarest animals in the world because how do you count what might not exist anymore but the Iberian lynx is one of the rarest cat species out there there are only about a hundred left native to Spain and Portugal it's lost most of its habitat to human development and its chief prey rabbits have been dwindling due to disease the Iberian lynx disappears it'll be the first known feline extinction since saber-toothed cats disappeared 10,000 years ago also it's gorgeous just look at those adorable crazy eyes speaking of crazy eyes number four is the pygmy tarsier this primate was thought to be extinct for 85 years until 2008 when an expedition found a handful of them in the mountains in Indonesia pygmy tarsiers live in trees and aggressive logging of their habitat has led to a steep decline in their numbers if the pygmy tarsier goes extinct we will have lost the only carnivorous primate in the world because they only eat insects number three the Javan rhino once widespread throughout Asia there are now only about 40 joven rhinoceroses in the wild sadly this has a lot to do with greedy crazy people in the 1930s Javan rhinos were nearly hunted to extinction in Malaysia India Burma and Sumatra because people believe their horn had medicinal properties today this rhinoceros is only found on the extreme western end the Indonesian island of Java making it likely the rarest large mammal in the world number two the Hawaiian crow why is one of those places where until Europeans moved in biodiversity was through the roof the white folks we brought cats and rats and snakes and bird malaria and feral pigs and these days Hawaii is known as the endangered species capital of the world since Captain Cook first set his buckled shoe on Hawaii twenty-eight native bird species have gone extinct and the Hawaiian crow or Olalla is one of the newest there are fewer than 100 alala alive today and they are all in captivity making them totally extinct in the wild and number one the Bhaiji a freshwater dolphin found only in China's Yangtze River the Bhaiji is functionally extinct meaning that there are so few of them that they're probably not reproducing anymore nobody knows for sure whether the last of these small white dolphins has already succumbed to overfishing habitat loss in pollution but a 2006 search of the entire river yielded no sightings a year later a fisherman took a video of what looked to be the Bhaiji but the tragic fact is one individual isn't enough to bring a species back from extinction just ask lonesome George thank you for watching this extraordinarily depressing scishow dose if you have any comments or questions or ideas for us we're on Facebook and Twitter and of course down in the comments below we'll see you next time you

Channel: SciShow

Views: 768,836

Rating: 4.9457231 out of 5

Keywords: scishow, science, biology, ecology, conservation, extinction, animal, species, habitat destruction, climate change, lonesome george, tortoise, galapagos, rare, iberian lynx, spain, portugal, development, prey, pygmy tarsier, extinct, indonesia, logging, carnivore, javan rhino, rhinoceros, malaysia, india, burma, sumatra, java, mammal, hawaiian crow, biodiversity, hawaii, 'alala, captive, captivity, wild, baiji, freshwater dolphin, yangtze river, china, overfishing, pollution, animals world, sci

Id: RoZkB_orZX0

Length: 3min 48sec (228 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 04 2012