More than 48,600 species are currently threatened with extinction, representing 28% of all species scientists have formally assessed. That number comes from the IUCN Red List, the world’s most comprehensive inventory of biological diversity, which has evaluated over 172,600 species to date. The crisis spans every branch of life: animals, plants, fungi, and corals are all losing ground.
Which Groups Face the Greatest Risk
Not all groups of living things are equally threatened. Cycads, an ancient group of palm-like plants that have existed since before the dinosaurs, top the list: 71% of all cycad species are at risk of extinction. Reef-forming corals follow at 44%, then amphibians at 41%. Trees and flowering plants sit around 38%, the same level as sharks, rays, and chimeras.
Among the animal groups most people think of first, 27% of mammal species are threatened, 26% of freshwater fish, 21% of reptiles, and about 12% of birds. Insects appear less threatened at around 16%, but that number comes with a major caveat: scientists have assessed only a small fraction of the world’s estimated 5.5 million insect species, so the true picture is likely far worse. The same gap applies to fungi, where the first 1,300 species were recently added to the Red List and at least 411 of those are already at risk.
Endangered Animals on Land
Amphibians are in the worst shape of any vertebrate group. Frogs, salamanders, and caecilians are losing habitat to agriculture and urban expansion while simultaneously being devastated by a fungal skin disease that has spread across continents. Four in ten amphibian species now face extinction.
Mammals are threatened at a rate of roughly one in four species. Large-bodied mammals are disproportionately affected because they need vast territories, reproduce slowly, and are more frequently targeted by hunters. But smaller mammals are quietly disappearing too. The woylie, a small Australian marsupial, was recently listed as critically endangered before intensive predator control programs helped move it back toward recovery.
Reptiles were the last major vertebrate group to receive a comprehensive global assessment, and the results showed 21% of species are threatened. Turtles and crocodilians face the highest pressure within the group, driven by habitat destruction and the illegal wildlife trade.
Endangered Species in the Ocean
Over 1,550 of the roughly 17,900 marine animals and plants assessed are at risk of extinction, and climate change affects at least 41% of those threatened marine species. Warming oceans, acidification, and shifting currents are compounding the damage from overfishing and coastal development.
Corals are among the hardest hit. In the Caribbean, pillar coral populations have shrunk by more than 80% since 1990, pushing the species to critically endangered status. Twenty-six coral species in the Atlantic Ocean alone are now classified at that highest threat level. Nearly half of all Atlantic corals face an elevated risk of extinction.
Sharks, rays, and chimeras are threatened at a rate of 38%, making them one of the most imperiled groups in the sea. Dugongs, large herbivorous marine mammals sometimes called “sea cows,” recently entered the Red List as threatened. So did 20 of the world’s 54 abalone species, shellfish prized in global seafood markets.
Threatened Plants and Fungi
Plants are often overlooked in conversations about extinction, but 38% of assessed tree species and a similar share of flowering plants are threatened. Tropical forests hold the greatest concentration of at-risk plant species because they harbor the most diversity and face the most intense pressure from logging and land conversion.
Fungi entered the global conservation picture only recently. The first 1,000 fungi assessed for the IUCN Red List revealed that roughly one in three are at risk. Many fungal species form underground networks essential to forest health, meaning their loss could trigger cascading effects on the trees and plants that depend on them.
Why Species Become Endangered
The leading threat to currently endangered species is habitat loss, responsible for 52% of cases. When forests are cleared for farmland, wetlands drained for development, or rivers dammed for energy, the species that lived there lose the conditions they need to survive. Exploitation, meaning hunting, fishing, and harvesting, accounts for about 24% of threats to endangered species. Invasive species contribute roughly 10%, though they have historically been the single largest driver of confirmed extinctions, responsible for 38% of species already lost.
Pollution and climate change each account for less than 10% of current threats when measured individually, but climate change is accelerating. Its effects are particularly visible in marine ecosystems and among amphibians, where shifting temperatures alter breeding cycles and push species out of habitable zones. For many species, multiple threats overlap: a frog might lose its forest habitat, encounter an invasive predator, and face a warming climate all at once.
Conservation Successes
The numbers are stark, but species do recover when given the chance. Between 2024 and 2025 alone, several species improved enough to be reclassified at lower risk levels. The golden bandicoot, an Australian marsupial, moved from vulnerable all the way to least concern after sustained habitat protection and predator management. The woylie jumped from critically endangered to near threatened. The rufous hare-wallaby and dusky hopping-mouse both improved from vulnerable to near threatened as well.
These Australian successes share a common thread: controlling invasive predators, particularly feral cats and foxes, and establishing predator-free sanctuaries. Barbour’s map turtle in the southeastern United States also improved its status, and several European insect species moved to lower risk categories. These recoveries are small relative to the scale of the crisis, but they demonstrate that targeted, well-funded conservation works. The challenge is scaling it up to match the 48,600 species that still need it.