The Cenozoic is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66 million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, birds, conifers, and angiosperms. It is the latest of three geological eras, preceded by the Mesozoic and Paleozoic. The Cenozoic started with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, when many species, including the non-avian dinosaurs, became extinct in an event attributed by most experts to the impact of a large asteroid or other celestial body, the Chicxulub impactor.
The Holocene extinction, or Anthropocene extinction, is the ongoing extinction event caused by humans during the Holocene epoch. These extinctions span numerous families of plants and animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates, and affecting not just terrestrial species but also large sectors of marine life. With widespread degradation of biodiversity hotspots, such as coral reefs and rainforests, as well as other areas, the vast majority of these extinctions are thought to be undocumented, as the species are undiscovered at the time of their extinction, which goes unrecorded. The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates and is increasing. During the past 100–200 years, biodiversity loss and species extinction have accelerated, to the point that most conservation biologists now believe that human activity has either produced a period of mass extinction, or is on the cusp of doing so. As such, after the "Big Five" mass extinctions, the Holocene extinction event has also been referred to as the sixth mass extinction or sixth extinction; given the recent recognition of the Capitanian mass extinction, the term seventh mass extinction has also been proposed for the Holocene extinction event.
Extinction is the termination of a taxon by the death of its last member. A taxon may become functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to reproduce and recover. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" after a period of apparent absence.
Evolution is a collection of short stories that work together to form an episodic science fiction novel by author Stephen Baxter. It follows 565 million years of human evolution, from shrewlike mammals 65 million years in the past to the ultimate fate of humanity and its descendants, both biological and non-biological, 500 million years in the future.
Several groups of tetrapods have undergone secondary aquatic adaptation, an evolutionary transition from being purely terrestrial to living at least part of the time in water. These animals are called "secondarily aquatic" because although their ancestors lived on land for hundreds of millions of years, they all originally descended from aquatic animals. These ancestral tetrapods had never left the water, and were thus primarily aquatic, like modern fishes. Secondary aquatic adaptations tend to develop in early speciation as the animal ventures into water in order to find available food. As successive generations spend more time in the water, natural selection causes the acquisition of more adaptations. Animals of later generations may spend most their life in the water, coming ashore for mating. Finally, fully adapted animals may take to mating and birthing in water or ice.
Space and survival is the idea that the long-term survival of the human species and technological civilization requires the building of a spacefaring civilization that utilizes the resources of outer space, and that not doing this might lead to human extinction. A related observation is that the window of opportunity for doing this may be limited due to the decreasing amount of surplus resources that will be available over time as a result of an ever-growing population.
Human extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species, either by population decline due to extraneous natural causes, such as an asteroid impact or large-scale volcanism, or via anthropogenic destruction (self-extinction), for example by sub-replacement fertility.
The Guam rail is a species of flightless bird in the Rallidae family, endemic to the United States territory of Guam. It is known locally as the ko'ko' bird. It was extirpated from the entire island by the late 1980s owing to the predation of the brown tree snake, an invasive species not native to the island.
The Future Is Wild is a 2002 speculative evolution docufiction miniseries and an accompanying multimedia entertainment franchise. The Future Is Wild explores the ecosystems and wildlife of three future time periods: 5, 100, and 200 million years in the future, in the format of a nature documentary. Though the settings and animals are fictional, the series has an educational purpose, serving as an informative and entertaining way to explore concepts such as evolution and climate change.
After Man: A Zoology of the Future is a 1981 speculative evolution book written by Scottish geologist and palaeontologist Dougal Dixon and illustrated by several illustrators including Diz Wallis, John Butler, Brian McIntyre, Philip Hood, Roy Woodard and Gary Marsh. The book features a foreword by Desmond Morris. After Man explores a hypothetical future set 50 million years after extinction of humanity, a time period Dixon dubs the "Posthomic", which is inhabited by animals that have evolved from survivors of a mass extinction succeeding our own time.
The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution is a 1988 speculative evolution book written by Scottish geologist and palaeontologist Dougal Dixon and illustrated by several illustrators including Amanda Barlow, Peter Barrett, John Butler, Jeane Colville, Anthony Duke, Andy Farmer, Lee Gibbons, Steve Holden, Philip Hood, Martin Knowelden, Sean Milne, Denys Ovenden and Joyce Tuhill. The book also features a foreword by Desmond Morris. The New Dinosaurs explores a hypothetical alternate Earth, complete with animals and ecosystems, where the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event never occurred, leaving non-avian dinosaurs and other Mesozoic animals an additional 65 million years to evolve and adapt over the course of the Cenozoic to the present day.
Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future is a 1990 speculative evolution and science fiction book written by Scottish geologist and palaeontologist Dougal Dixon and illustrated by Philip Hood. The book also features a foreword by Brian Aldiss. Man After Man explores a hypothetical future path of human evolution set from 200 years in the future to 5 million years in the future, with several future human species evolving through genetic engineering and natural means through the course of the book.
Background extinction rate, also known as the normal extinction rate, refers to the standard rate of extinction in Earth's geological and biological history, excluding major extinction events, including the current human-induced Holocene extinction. Currently there have been five mass extinctions that have happened since the beginning of time all resulting from a variety of reasons.
A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, even endangering or destroying modern civilization. An event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's existence or potential is known as an "existential risk".
The biological and geological future of Earth can be extrapolated based on the estimated effects of several long-term influences. These include the chemistry at Earth's surface, the cooling rate of the planet's interior, the gravitational interactions with other objects in the Solar System, and a steady increase in the Sun's luminosity. An uncertain factor is the pervasive influence of technology introduced by humans, such as climate engineering, which could cause significant changes to the planet. For example, the current Holocene extinction is being caused by technology, and the effects may last for up to five million years. In turn, technology may result in the extinction of humanity, leaving the planet to gradually return to a slower evolutionary pace resulting solely from long-term natural processes.
As with a number of other geographically isolated islands, Hawaii has problems with invasive species negatively affecting the natural biodiversity of the islands.
De-extinction is the process of generating an organism that either resembles or is an extinct species. There are several ways to carry out the process of de-extinction. Cloning is the most widely proposed method, although genome editing and selective breeding have also been considered. Similar techniques have been applied to certain endangered species, in hopes to boost their genetic diversity. The only method of the three that would provide an animal with the same genetic identity is cloning. There are benefits and drawbacks to the process of de-extinction ranging from technological advancements to ethical issues.
Speculative evolution is a subgenre of science fiction and an artistic movement focused on hypothetical scenarios in the evolution of life, and a significant form of fictional biology. It is also known as speculative biology and it is referred to as speculative zoology in regards to hypothetical animals. Works incorporating speculative evolution may have entirely conceptual species that evolve on a planet other than Earth, or they may be an alternate history focused on an alternate evolution of terrestrial life. Speculative evolution is often considered hard science fiction because of its strong connection to and basis in science, particularly biology.
All Tomorrows: A Billion Year Chronicle of the Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man is a 2006 work of science fiction and speculative evolution written and illustrated by the Turkish artist C. M. Kosemen under the pen name Nemo Ramjet. It explores a hypothetical future path of human evolution set from the near future to a billion years from the present. Several future human species evolve through natural means and through genetic engineering, conducted by both humans themselves and by a mysterious and superior alien species called the Qu.
Greenworld is a 2010 speculative evolution and science fiction book written by Scottish geologist and paleontologist Dougal Dixon and primarily illustrated by Dixon himself, alongside a few images by other artists. Greenworld features a fictional alien planet of the same name and a diverse biosphere of alien organisms. Greenworld has so far only been published in Japan, where it was released in two volumes.
