When their habitat is destroyed, animals become in danger of extinction. The following are groups of animals most vulnerable to extinction.

Large Animals: Tigers, bears, and other big carnivores require large range in which to find food. Instead, they are restricted to increasingly smaller areas.

Slow Reproducers: One example of a slow reproducer is the California condor. It begins to lay at most one egg a year only after it is six years old. Depending on hatching success, it may take an average pair of condors fifteen years to reproduce themselves.

Island Species: Many of These animals evolved in balance with their natural predators. Yet they developed few defenses against foreign invaders, such as cats, dogs, mongooses, humans, and diseases.

Rare or Geographically Isolated or Highly Specialized Species: A vast number of the species found in tropical forests fit in these categories. When tropical forests are cleared, these species are often eliminated.

Encyclopedia of Biodiversity
*R-SIBL QH541.15 .B56 .E53

Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia
*R-SIBL QL 3 .G7813



Computer Indexes
General Science Abstracts
Biology Digest

Print Indexes
General Science Index*R-SIBL Z7401 .G46
Biological Abstracts*R-SIBL QH301 .B37