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    All Featured Books
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  • Home
  • News
  • Featured Books
    • All Featured Books
    • Book of the Month Series
  • User Stories
  • Campaigns
    • Fossil Stories
    • Garden Stories
    • Monsters Are Real
    • Page Frights
    • Her Natural History
    • Earth Optimism 2020
  • Tech Blog
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Biodiversity Heritage Library - Program news and collection highlights from BHL

All posts tagged with extinction

Blog Reel, Campaigns, Earth Optimism 2020, User Stories

BHL: A Window into the Past, Present, and Future of Caribbean Mammals

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The Hispaniolan solenodon is a unique, and at first glance somewhat peculiar, animal. Even its scientific name conveys the unusualness of the species — Solenodon paradoxus.

One of two extant solenodon species (the other being the Cuban solenodon), the Hispaniolan solenodon is found only in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It, like its Cuban counterpart, is endangered.

As members of the mammalian Order Eulipotyphla, which includes insectivores such as shrews, hedgehogs, and moles, solenodons diverged from all other living mammals over 70 million years ago. They are only found in the Caribbean, making them an important priority for the conservation of evolutionary diversity. This long history means that they have survived countless extinction events and only today are threatened.

Dr. Alexis Mychajliw (Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) has been studying the Hispaniolan solenodon as part of her research on Caribbean mammals for more than five years. Much of her work has focused on flipping the narrative of the Hispaniolan solenodon from endangered weirdo to resilient survivor.

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June 13, 2019byGrace Costantino and Alexis Mychajliw
Blog Reel, User Stories

Vanity and BHL: Examining Extinction and Rediscovery through Art

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Vanity, an art installation by Joseph Gregory Rossano created for and with the support of the Museum of Glass (MOG) in Tacoma, Washington, tells the story of eleven species and subspecies, presumed extinct, presented through the lens of humanity’s role in their demise. The exhibition features historical accounts detailing each species’ “discovery” (collection date, type locality, collector, scientific illustrations, etc.), humanity’s role in its extinction, and the year it was declared “Extinct”. To produce these species tales, Rossano collaborated with Sandra I. Berríos-Torres, MD. Berríos-Torres served as author of the 11 historical accounts and as Editorial Director of the exhibition catalogue, on behalf of Joseph Gregory Rossano.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library was a crucial resource for Berríos-Torres. Consulting dozens of publications in BHL while conducting research for Vanity, she ultimately cited 16 of them in the historical accounts that were incorporated into the exhibition and catalogue.

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February 7, 2019byGrace Costantino and Sandra I. Berríos Torres, MD
BHL News, Blog Reel

We Need Books To…Support Conservation

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This month, we’re publishing a series of blog posts outlining the importance of biodiversity literature, made available for free and open access through the Biodiversity Heritage Library, to today’s scientific research and conservation initiatives. With your help, we can help save biodiversity. 

Each week, 10-690 species go extinct, according to reports published via Nature.

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December 29, 2014byGrace Costantino
BHL News, Blog Reel

We Need Books To…Learn from Past Extinctions

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This month, we’re publishing a series of blog posts outlining the importance of biodiversity literature, made available for free and open access through the Biodiversity Heritage Library, to today’s scientific research and conservation initiatives. With your help, we can help save biodiversity. On September 1, 1914, at approximately 1pm in the afternoon, a passenger pigeon named Martha died. Her death marked the extinction of her entire species.

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December 23, 2014byGrace Costantino
BHL News, Blog Reel

We Need Books to Save Biodiversity

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This month, we’re publishing a series of blog posts outlining the importance of biodiversity literature, made available for free and open access through the Biodiversity Heritage Library, to today’s scientific research and conservation initiatives.
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December 12, 2014byGrace Costantino
BHL News, Blog Reel

A Global Discussion about Martha, Extinction and Conservation

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Thanks to everyone who tuned in for our #Martha100 TwitterChat with @NMNH (National Museum of Natural History) and @SILibraries (Smithsonian Libraries) yesterday!

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September 3, 2014byGrace Costantino
Blog Reel, Campaigns, Featured Books

Once There Were Billions: Carolina Parakeet

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At this time of year, those of us in the U.S. often find our eyes turned skyward to admire a brilliant array of colors lighting up the night sky in celebration of America’s independence.  Up until about a hundred years ago, a colorful display of another kind filled the North American skies, and not just on the fourth of July. Jewel-colored Carolina Parakeets (Conuropsis carolinensis) traveled in huge, noisy flocks from southern New York and Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico, favoring old forests along rivers. Although they looked tropical, Carolina Parakeets didn’t migrate south in the winter but weathered the cold. As their forests were cut to make space for farms, the parrots were shot for feeding on crops and orchards.

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July 3, 2014byCarolyn Sheffield
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The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. Headquartered at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives in Washington, D.C., BHL operates as a worldwide consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working together to digitize the natural history literature held in their collections and make it freely available for open access as part of a global “biodiversity community.”

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