national geographics friday fact

cm1179 · 24 Sep 2011 at 00:14

ok, so technically it's saturday but anyway

''Friday Fact: More than 99 percent of the species that have ever existed are now extinct.''

how can this be true? boggles my mind a little. it doesn't really give anything more than that. are they talking plants, animals, amoeba?!

touch · 24 Sep 2011 at 00:18

Is it really that surprising? Life on this planet has existed for billions of years.

M1k3H · 24 Sep 2011 at 00:19

one word: evolution.

Reaper 392 · 24 Sep 2011 at 00:21

doesnt really surprise me. there was a mass extinction when the meteor hit that took out the dinosaurs.

there was also a mass extinction when the earth was literally turned into a snowball, wiping out 95% of life on earth at the time.

there were probably a few other things like that which i cant remember off the top of my head

OminousLatinNoun · 24 Sep 2011 at 00:25

Makes me think of..

Always a little dark.

Amp34 · 24 Sep 2011 at 00:49

Reaper 392 said:
doesnt really surprise me. there was a mass extinction when the meteor hit that took out the dinosaurs.

there was also a mass extinction when the earth was literally turned into a snowball, wiping out 95% of life on earth at the time.

there were probably a few other things like that which i cant remember off the top of my head

There have been five mass extinctions that we know of so far alongside a couple of dozen large extinction events off the top of my head.

Worryingly there is evidence to suggest the earth is going through a mass extinction at the moment.