SYDNEY, April 28 (Xinhua) -- A team of international and Australian scientists have released a global assessment which delivered a grim conclusion that more than one fifth of all the world's reptiles face potential extinction.
The report, published in the Nature journal and released to the public on Thursday, showed that 21 percent of more than 10,000 reptile species assessed faced potential extinction in the near future.
The report also found that amphibians were the most vulnerable sub group with over 40 percent of all assessed species being at risk of extinction.
The report was coordinated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and saw collaboration between thousands of scientists from across every major region.
Professor David Chapple in Evolutionary and Conservation Ecology at Monash University, who headed operations in Australia and New Zealand, told Xinhua the massive scale of the project meant that the report was able to show how each region faced unique and varied ecological challenges.
"People generally have regional expertise ... so it's a very effective way to generate these conservation assessments," he said.
Australia is home to around 10 percent of the world's known reptile species, the vast majority of which are only found on the continent.
"The Global Reptile Assessment revealed that the plight of Australia's reptiles has deteriorated over the past 25 years, with a doubling of the number of threatened species," said Chapple.
He said that while globally the future impacts of climate change were hard to accurately model, it was beginning to see in real time its impacts.
"Previously, we thought a species that was relatively widespread in eastern Australia would be safe from bushfires because the entire range wouldn't be impacted. But that changed a couple of years ago (during Australia's 2019-20 summer bushfires)."
He added that these catastrophic bushfires had the potential to destroy the entire habitat range of species in Australia, and had already driven many species to the brink.
Chapple said that conservationists and scientists were very aware of the threat of extinction and the next step would be engaging and informing the public.
"We're actually facing the potential loss of a wide range of different species, particularly ones that have large functions within the ecosystems that they're in." ■
