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The Sixth Extinction An Unnatural History Chapter Summary

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The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History details the continued loss of biodiversity that has occurred since the rise of mankind. Elizabeth Kolbert claims that we are now in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, and that, if precautionary measures are not taken, the loss of biodiversity would be catastrophic. Chapter one begins by describing the golden frogs in the town of El Valle de Antón, and how they were beginning to disappear. The frogs disappeared due to a fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. This fungus has spread around the world at a lightning-quick rate, killing all sorts of amphibious organisms at an unnatural rate. The cause of the rapid spreading of the fungus has been theorized to be due to humans inadvertently spreading …show more content…

The concept of species going extinct was not always accepted as fact. It wasn’t until the discovery of the American mastodon that the concept of extinction was even considered. With the discovery of the bones, When the bones were discovered, many theories were constructed, such as that the bones were actually from multiple creatures, or that this was simply an undiscovered species and hadn’t been found. The discovery of other mysterious, lost species led to the concept of extinction, and the idea that the mammoth was indeed a species that, while it once was prevalent, no longer roamed the Earth. In chapter three, Kolbert writes about her visit to Iceland in which she learned about the loss of the great auk, a three foot tall bird reminiscent of a large penguin or puffin. She then proceeds to write the tragedy of the great auks, that being that they were regularly hunted and killed. The final moments of the great auk’s species can be tracked down, as they were captured and sold and their only egg was broken. The concept of human-caused extinctions wasn’t new, as Darwin wrote about how the Galápagos tortoises were dying out very rapidly due to overhunting. The extinction of species stems from events that drastically affect them, be them environmental changes to human …show more content…

The chapter then moves to Kolbert’s experience with ammonite fossils in Princeton, New Jersey. While the distinct spiral shape of ammonites is well-known and agreed upon, the exact shape and structure of the mollusk in the shell is heavily debated. Ammonites are then compared to nautiluses, living animals that heavily resemble ammonites, in terms of why one species was able to flourish, while the other was wiped out. Chapter five lays out the concept that ordinarily species go extinct at a gradual, slow pacing, unless of course there is a catastrophic event, such as human meddling or a giant asteroid, in which case the extinction process is expedited. The extinct species that Kolbert studies in this chapter is the graptolite, a long, thin, V-shaped marine animal. The extinction of grapolite is theorized to be due to a drastic change in the ocean. Kolbert additionally tells a theory that, in the future, rats will be the predominant race on Earth, overtaking even humans. This is all based on the fact that humans have too drastically changed the Earth’s composition and wherever humans go and change, rats are there to follow. Thus we are ushering in the Anthropocene, or the “age of humans,” a time period in which humans have wrecked up the planet to the point of no

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