New research reveals that Australia is losing up to three species of native insects and other invertebrates to extinction each week.
As per The Guardian, since European settlement in Australia, over 9,000 species of invertebrates have gone extinct.
Despite the Australian government’s promise to stop further extinctions, it is predicted that an additional 39 to 148 species will become extinct this year.
The paper published in Cambridge Prisms: Extinction reveals that many of these extinctions were “ghost extinctions,” where species vanished before they could ever be discovered.
Lead author Prof John Woinarski, from Charles Darwin University and the Biodiversity Council, said in a statement, “Australians were blind to the loss of invertebrate species. We’ve caused far more harm, loss of species, loss of nature, than what we’ve recognised and acknowledged to date.”
The Tasmanian worm went extinct after its only habitat, the original beach of the lake, was flooded in the early 1970s.
Woinarski explained that invertebrates face the same type of threats as other species, including climate change, loss of habitat, pollution in water sources, incorrect use of insecticides, land clearing and the presence of non-native species.
As per the researchers climate change plays a crucial factor affecting the conservation of these invertebrates.
