Threatened arthropods

Furthermore, according to Deyrup and Eisner,[2] "The rate of destruction and degradation of natural habitats is currently so great that there are not nearly enough biologists to even catalog the arthropod species that are suddenly on the edge of extinction."

However the expansion of human activities has led to demise of many arthropod species through the mechanisms of deforestation, conventional farming, slash-and-burn methods in the tropics, habitat fragmentation via urban development, excessive use of pesticides and even the success of forest fire suppression.

[5] As a consequence of all of the above, most published estimates of the total number of endangered insects and arachnids are probably low by at least an order of magnitude.

[citation needed] Agriculture, in particular has a number of direct effects: a monocultures from intensive practices cannot support the biodiversity nurtured by the predecessor natural environment.

In tropical regions the major threat is slash-and-burn agricultural techniques pursued by indigenous peoples in their sometimes only available method of subsistence.

[8] The following is a very small fraction of the potentially hundreds of thousands of endangered arthropods, limited to species which have been formally recognized as to their special conservation status:

Risiocnemis seidenschwarzi , a critically endangered damselfly from the Philippines . An IUCN Red List assessment in 2009 estimated fewer than 50 mature adult individuals remained. [ 1 ]
The endangered Delhi Sands flower-loving fly .
Aerial photo of the Anjajavy Forest , Madagascar which holds a number of endangered arthropods.
The endangered white-clawed crayfish