The Extinction of a Species

Every once in a while, a species that hasn't gone extinct will disappear
from the fossil record. Sometimes, this is because a life form has evolved
into a new species -- this is known as pseudoextinction. Life forms can
also disappear from the fossil record and reappear later. These Lazarus
species may have experienced a dip in population, or they may not have
died in conditions that lead to fossilization.
But most of the time, when a species disappears from the fossil record --
or from the face of the planet today -- it's because it's on its way to
extinction. Typically, these small-scale extinctions happen because of
some kind of change in the environment where a life form lives. While
some species can adapt to the changes, others die, and if enough die,
the species becomes extinct. These are some of the biggest factors in the
extinctions of particular species:
Habitat loss
Competition with new species
Human hunting
Contaminants in the environment, such as pesticides
The loss of one species can also lead to the loss of many others. For
example, owering plants rely on pollinators, like bees and butteries, to
reproduce. If the pollinators disappear, the owering plants can die, too.
The same is true with changes in the food chain. If an animal relies on a
specic plant for food and that plant becomes extinct, the animal will
soon follow unless it's able to change its diet. A good example is the
extinctions that happened at the end of the last ice age, about 11,000
years ago. Small mammals began to go extinct, probably because of
climate change and changes in geography. This caused the extinction of
bigger animals, like saber-tooth cats, which lost their food source.
Typically, little changes like this happen all over the world all the time,
leading to the extinction of a few interrelated species. But sometimes the
stress on an ecosystem is so large that not many life forms survive. Next,
we'll look at some of the world's biggest extinctions.

Wilson, Tracy V. "How Extinction Works." HowStu"Works.
HowStu"Works.com, 10 Mar. 2008. Web. 20 May 2014.
(Wilson,2008)