Not a ranking, and not one moment in time. Only the position along the scale carries a value. Row order, height and brightness carry none.
Most figures are animals in the wild. Where a figure is adults only, singing males, or wild and captive together, its label says so.
Counts as they stood on 13 November 2026. Each record carries its own date.
Each figure keeps its own kind and date.
Then and now
An earlier dated figure beside the latest one, each with its kind. No line joins them. Two figures are a trend only when the counting body calls one.
An earlier dated figure beside the latest one. No line joins them.
Animal
Then
Now
Counted by
Each figure keeps its own kind and date.
Gone from the wild
No animals are known in the wild as of the date shown; those that remain live in captivity, and the tile says whether any have been released and when.
0known in the wild
Northern white rhino
Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya (out of its natural range in central Africa)
Counted April 2026, by the BioRescue consortium (released 22 April 2026).
The whole subspecies is 2 females, and BioRescue reports that neither can conceive naturally.
What moves it
The BioRescue consortium names hunting and poaching for the animals' horns, and war across much of the range (which ended protection work there), as pressures on the subspecies. It also reports that the remaining females cannot conceive naturally.
Photo: Karimi Ngore, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
0known in the wild
ʻAkikiki
Hawaiʻi, Kauaʻi (Alakaʻi Plateau)
Last wild sighting 29 August 2025, per the Kauaʻi Forest Bird Recovery Project (posted 27 August 2026).
No wild ʻAkikiki is known since 29 August 2025. The species lives on in conservation breeding aviaries.
What moves it
Avian malaria drove the decline. Warming temperatures let the invasive mosquitoes that carry it spread up into the mountain forests, and a genomic study finds inbreeding depression among the last birds.
For most animals, nobody knows how many there are.
Insects
No number
Insects: nobody knows. The two figures that circulate are rough estimates, not counts: insects are counted in some places, never worldwide.
The space is empty on purpose. Unknown is not zero.
No counting body has published a current total, so the tile shows the last number on record with its year, or nothing at all, and says what stands in the way of a count.
34to47
Sumatran rhino
Sumatra and Kalimantan, Indonesia
Estimate, with range
Last estimated March 2022; carried forward by the IUCN SSC Asian Rhino Specialist Group with TRAFFIC in a report released 2025.
The last estimate, 34 to 47, dates from March 2022 and has been carried forward unchanged since.
What moves it
The IUCN SSC Asian Rhino Specialist Group with TRAFFIC names poaching for the horn trade as the largest threat to rhinos as a whole (African and Asian), not to this species alone.
Last reported November 2025 by Brazil's ICMBio via Agência Gov; no wild figure given.
Every bird recaptured from the wild in November 2025 tested positive for circovirus, which has no cure, ICMBio says.
What moves it
ICMBio names circovirus, which has no cure and kills most infected birds: every bird recaptured from the wild in early November 2025 tested positive. ICMBio also names logging of riverside forest and grazing by goats, sheep and cattle, describes capture and trafficking as feared for the reintroduced flock, and puts the bird's original disappearance from the wild down to habitat destruction and capture for the illegal trade.
Estimate published by NSW Local Land Services on 23 June 2026; the source gives no count date.
Nobody knows exactly: NSW Local Land Services puts the wild regent honeyeater at about 200 to 400, with no date for the count.
What moves it
NSW Local Land Services names these pressures: clearing and fragmentation of woodland; competitors such as noisy miners; predators such as possums, currawongs and ravens; bushfires that destroy habitat and birds; reduced genetic diversity; and climate change.
Cayman Islands, Grand Cayman (Salina Reserve, Colliers Wilderness Reserve)
Not counted as a whole as of 12 November 2026; the release-area estimates are reported by the National Trust for the Cayman Islands with the RSPB.
Monitoring points to too few young joining naturally, so the rebuilt population is not likely to keep itself going.
What moves it
The National Trust for the Cayman Islands with the RSPB reports that monitoring points strongly to too few young joining the wild iguanas naturally, so the rebuilt population is not likely to keep itself going over the long term.
These figures do not count every animal in the wild: they measure the forest a wintering colony covers, or the butterflies seen at their winter sites, so they stay off the scale.
2.93hectares
Monarch butterfly (eastern migratory population)
North America east of the Rockies; winters in the oyamel forests of Michoacán and State of Mexico
Counted another way
Counted December 2025, results presented by Mexico's SEMARNAT with WWF Mexico and CONANP (released 17 March 2026).
In December 2025, the wintering colonies covered 2.93 hectares of forest, up on the season before, Mexico's SEMARNAT reports.
What moves it
As pressures on the monarch, Mexico's SEMARNAT names pesticides (above all in the United States), milkweed dying off (a plant the monarch feeds on) and climate change. It also names fires, illegal logging and drought in the overwintering forest, and poorly managed tourism.
Photo: Lori Nordstrom / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)
12,260
Monarch butterfly (western migratory population)
Western North America; winters on the coast of California and Baja California
Butterflies counted at winter sites, a minimum
Counted from late November to early December 2025, by the Xerces Society's Western Monarch Count (released 29 January 2026).
Western monarchs are in a long decline and losing California winter groves to development, the Xerces Society reports.
What moves it
The Xerces Society names the loss of winter groves on California's coast to development as a major pressure, and ties the long decline to shrinking habitat, pesticides and a changing climate.
Photo: Joanna Gilkeson / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)
Never as few as 1,000
Its counts have never fallen to 1,000 in the wild, so it stands above the wall, not on it.
about2,833,600
Saiga antelope
Kazakhstan (Ural, Betpak-Dala and Ustyurt populations); smaller populations in Russia and Mongolia not included
Estimate, no range
Counted May 2024, by Kazakhstan's Okhotzooprom with ACBK scientists, published by the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative.
Kazakhstan's saiga are up since the last count. The Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative formed to keep them from disappearing.
What moves it
Okhotzooprom with ACBK scientists report the number as up since the last count, and the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative credits its own work for the rise from an earlier low.
Live Species lists a wild animal when 1,000 or fewer are left in the wild, or when it was once that few and has been counted back up past 1,000, and only after the count has been read at its source, with its date and the body that counted.
47 so far.
42 at 1,000 or fewer. 5 counted back up past it. 2 more are gone from the wild and listed apart.
How to read a number
Each number is dated and credited to whoever counted it. Only the human number moves.
Head count
Animals counted in one coordinated count, not estimated. Some may be missed or counted twice. Where every animal is known one by one, the animal's own page says so.
Estimate, with range
A survey estimate: the headline number is the most likely figure, and the range beside it is how far either way the true number could sit.
Estimate, no range
The counting body's best figure from a survey or a model, published without a range, so read it as about this many rather than exactly this many.
At least this many
The number of different animals actually seen or known alive; the true total is at least this and may well be higher.
Known alive, a minimum
A minimum given as a range: the counters put the number of different animals known alive within it, and the true total may be higher.
From a model
Calculated from sightings and survival rates rather than counted, so it changes when the model is updated, sometimes for earlier years too.
Counted another way
These figures do not count every animal in the wild: they measure the forest a wintering colony covers, or the butterflies seen at their winter sites, so they stay off the scale.
Two figures that disagree
Two bodies publish different numbers for the same animal. The independent or peer-reviewed figure leads, and the other sits beside it with its own source and date.
Adults
Adults only, the counting body's term is mature individuals, animals old enough to breed; the young are not in this number.
Singing males
The survey counts males singing on territory, so the figure is not every bird.
Running estimate
The only number here that moves: the UN's 2024 World Population Prospects model run forward to this second, so an estimate, not a count.
Two figures are a trend only when the counting body calls one.
A zero reads gone from the wild. A missing number stays blank.
