Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms (taxon), normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "re-appears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence.
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Famous quotes containing the word extinction:
“The problems of this world are only truly solved in two ways: by extinction or duplication.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Man is an over-complicated organism. If he is doomed to extinction he will die out for want of simplicity.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity of the already free which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would bring.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)