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The latest update to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species includes an all-too-rare victory: The Arabian Oryx ( Oryx leucoryx ) has been upgraded from the Endangered category to Vulnerable. This is quite an achievement, because the species was extinct in the wild just a few decades ago. The last wild Arabian Oryx was shot in 1972

A jumping cockroach.

Tasmanian devils are losing a hellish battle: A contagious cancer--called devil facial tumor disease--is spreading across their island home, their last bastion of safety from human encroachment. Populations of this carnivorous marsupial have declined in parts of Tasmania by as much as 95 percent, and the species is now officially endangered

Sometimes conservation plans work so well that once-endangered species no longer need protection. That's the case in Central America, where the Morelet's crocodile ( Crocodylus moreletii ) has recovered enough that many of the protections put in place decades ago to help it are now on the verge of being lifted. Once heavily hunted for their skin, which was heavily valued as a source of high-quality leather, the Morelet's crocodile began its slow climb toward survival back in 1970, when Mexico (where most of the animals live) banned hunting of all crocodiles and caimans.

Decades of widespread hunting and poaching have taken a mighty toll on the great Indian bustard ( Ardeotis nigriceps ), an endangered bird once found throughout India and Pakistan but now limited to a few small populations totaling maybe 1,000 individuals. New research reveals that the species is in worse shape than previously realized