Paleonet: Recently extinct marine bivalves and arthropods?

[Noel Heim]

Hi Tom,

I can't think of an extinct marine bivalve or arthropod either. A quick 
search of the IUCN Red List and WoRMS for bivalves supports your 
hypothesis that we have simply not gathered evidence for extinction 
threat. The Red List includes 83 marine bivalve species that have been 
evaluated. WoRMS lists a 8,430 extant marine bivalve species in total. 
I'm sure limiting to genera would produce a similar percentage of 
evaluated taxa. Though both these databases have their critics, this 
certainly suggests we just have not studied extinction and extinction 
vulnerability in these groups to the same extent as we have for mammals, 
birds, etc.

Best,
Noel

****
Noel Heim
Tufts University
Dept. Earth & Climate Sciences


On 9/2/22 10:16 AM, Thomas Hegna wrote:
> All,
>    I'm having a debate with someone about appropriate indicators for 
> our recent biodiversity crisis (extinction at taxonomically high 
> levels vs. taxonomically low levels). They made the claim that no 
> marine bivalve or marine arthropod genus has gone extinct in the last 
> 500 years. I think they are unintentionally cherry-picking (but I 
> understand why--they want to ultimately compare this to the 
> paleobiology database, which was originally focused on marine, shelly 
> organisms). The "Save the Crabs, Then Eat 'Em" campaign is much less 
> well known than the "Save the Whales" campaign, sadly. But, I do not 
> know if it is true. Can any of you think of a recently extinct marine 
> arthropod or bivalve genus? I suspect this is a case of absence of 
> evidence does not necessarily mean evidence of absence.
> Best,
> Tom
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> ___________________________________
> Thomas A. Hegna, Ph.D
> Assistant Professor
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