Madagascar, Ecuador and Brazil are the countries with the most endangered species. The World Bank’s World Development Indicators for 2022, which draw on the IUCN Red List, count 3,191 threatened species of mammals, birds, fish and higher plants in Madagascar, 2,263 in Ecuador and 1,958 in Brazil. Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Tanzania, Colombia and the Philippines follow, with Cameroon and Australia tied for tenth. The order looked different only four years earlier. In the 2018 edition of the same data, Ecuador was first, Madagascar second and Brazil sixth, and China and the United States were both in the top ten. Over longer periods, the national totals have grown mainly because far more species have been assessed. The stories of lemurs, the vaquita and the Sumatran rhinoceros show that part of it reflects real decline.
Madagascar 3,191, Ecuador 2,263, Brazil 1,958: the 2022 ranking
“Threatened” has a precise meaning here. The IUCN Red List sorts species into nine categories. The three categories below Extinct in the Wild, Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable, together make up “threatened”. The World Bank publishes national counts for four groups: mammals, birds, fish and higher (vascular) plants. The totals below add those four groups. They leave out reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates, so every country’s real figure is higher.
| Rank | Country | Threatened species, 2022 | Of which plants |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Madagascar | 3,191 | 2,894 |
| 2 | Ecuador | 2,263 | 2,029 |
| 3 | Brazil | 1,958 | 1,346 |
| 4 | Mexico | 1,899 | 1,426 |
| 5 | Indonesia | 1,716 | 977 |
| 6 | Malaysia | 1,647 | 1,317 |
| 7 | Tanzania | 1,320 | 1,010 |
| 8 | Colombia | 1,266 | 918 |
| 9 | Philippines | 1,179 | 903 |
| 10= | Cameroon | 1,115 | 888 |
| 10= | Australia | 1,115 | 766 |
Plants dominate every total. Madagascar’s 2,894 threatened plants alone are more than the entire total of any other country. The animal groups give a different leader. Indonesia has the most threatened species in all three animal groups: 212 mammals, 161 birds and 366 fish. Brazil is second for birds (155) and fish (360), and Madagascar second for mammals (133). If the ranking counted animals only, Indonesia would be first. The countries in this table are mostly the same tropical, species-rich countries that lead biodiversity rankings. A country needs many species, and many found nowhere else, before it can have many at risk.
Ecuador’s second place comes almost entirely from its plants: 2,029 of its 2,263 threatened species. That is a lot for a country of about 283,600 km² including the Galápagos Islands, smaller than any other country in the top five. Ecuador has more than 16,000 plant species and the most biodiversity per square kilometre of any country. It was also the first country to write the rights of nature into its constitution, in 2008.
From 2018 to 2022: Madagascar overtakes Ecuador, and Brazil and Australia surge
The World Bank published the same four indicators for 2018, so the two years can be compared directly. The 2018 top ten was Ecuador (2,073), Madagascar (1,380), Indonesia (975), Malaysia (948), Tanzania (913), Brazil (906), China (898), the United States (892), Mexico (832) and India (809). In just four years:
- Madagascar went from 1,380 to 3,191 and took first place. Almost the whole increase was in plants, which rose from 1,111 to 2,894 as more of the island’s endemic flora was assessed.
- Brazil more than doubled, from 906 to 1,958, and rose from sixth to third. Its threatened plants went from 558 to 1,346 and its fish from 93 to 360.
- Mexico rose from ninth to fourth, as threatened plants climbed from 484 to 1,426.
- Colombia (13th to 8th) and the Philippines (14th to 9th) entered the top ten. Their plant counts rose from 268 to 918 and from 254 to 903.
- Australia made the biggest jump of any country now in the top ten, from 22nd to joint tenth, as its total tripled from 348 to 1,115. Its threatened plants went from 108 to 766.
- China (7th to 13th), the United States (8th to 12th) and India (10th to 14th) left the top ten. Their totals still rose, to 1,092, 1,101 and 1,008, but more slowly than others.
Fish rose sharply almost everywhere. Indonesia’s threatened fish went from 166 to 366, Malaysia’s from 87 to 183 and Colombia’s from 99 to 183. Malaysia’s total climbed from 948 to 1,647 even though it dropped two places, from fourth to sixth. Tanzania rose from 913 to 1,320 but fell from fifth to seventh, because others grew faster. Cameroon, 11th in 2018 with 752, reached joint tenth with 1,115. The African members of the top ten are dominated by plants, with 1,010 threatened plants in Tanzania and 888 in Cameroon.
Not every group went up. The number of threatened birds fell in Brazil (175 to 155), Colombia (126 to 102) and Ecuador (106 to 86). Birds are among the best-studied groups on the Red List, so falls like these most likely reflect reassessment of species already listed rather than a sudden recovery.
Why the totals keep rising: 40,168 species assessed in 2006, 150,388 by 2023
The most important thing to understand about any “most endangered species” ranking is that it measures what scientists have assessed, as well as how nature is faring. The Red List began in 1964, and its first loose-leaf volumes on mammals and birds appeared in 1966. A plants volume, covering flowering plants only, followed in 1970. Since 2001 all assessments have used version 3.1 of the categories and criteria. Country tables from the 1990s used the older 1994 categories and covered far fewer species, so they cannot be compared with today’s.
What can be compared is the scale of the effort. The 2006 Red List evaluated 40,168 species. In 2007 it listed 16,306 as threatened. By the 2012 release, presented at the Rio+20 Earth Summit, 63,837 species had been assessed and 19,817 were threatened. By 2023, 150,388 species had been assessed and 42,108 were considered at risk of extinction.
In the World Bank figures, the biggest rises came in countries whose threatened-plant counts jumped, such as Madagascar, Brazil, Mexico and Australia, which fits a picture of plant assessment catching up. The United States, whose animals were already well covered, rose more slowly. The Philippines shows the scale of the change: Wikipedia’s account of its wildlife cites 700 threatened species in 2013, while the four World Bank groups alone came to 1,179 by 2022.
Lemurs, the vaquita and the Sumatran rhinoceros: 20 to 30 years of decline
A growing count does not mean the decline is only on paper. For the best-known species, the record over the past two or three decades shows real losses.
Madagascar’s lemurs. In 2005 the IUCN listed 16 percent of lemur species as critically endangered, 23 percent as endangered, 25 percent as vulnerable and 28 percent as data deficient. A July 2012 assessment, which pointed to the exploitation of natural resources after the 2009 political crisis, found 90 percent of lemur species threatened with extinction. That was the highest proportion of any group of mammals. By 2025 the IUCN reported that 98 percent of lemur species faced extinction risk. The indri, one of the largest living lemurs, shows what those percentages mean for a single species. It is critically endangered, with an estimated 1,000 to 10,000 animals left, and its population may shrink by 80 percent over the next three generations, about 36 years, mainly because of slash-and-burn farming, fuelwood gathering and logging, even inside protected areas. Madagascar has lost more than 90 percent of its original forest since people arrived about 2,350 years ago, and by a conservative estimate about 40 percent of its original forest cover was lost between the 1950s and 2000.
Mexico’s vaquita. The world’s smallest porpoise lives only in the northern Gulf of California. The first full survey, in 1997, estimated 567 animals. By 2007 there were about 150, and by 2018 fewer than 19. The main cause was drowning in gillnets set illegally for totoaba, a fish. A 2024 survey saw at least 6 to 8, and monitoring in 2025 identified 7 to 10 individuals, including new calves.
The Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia and Indonesia. Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sumatra held an estimated 500 rhinos in the 1980s, and that population is now considered extinct. Malaysia declared the rhino extinct in the wild in Sabah in April 2015 and in Peninsular Malaysia in August 2015. Iman, the last known Sumatran rhino in Malaysia, died in November 2019. Fewer than 80 mature animals survive, all in Indonesia. Indonesia also holds the last Javan rhinoceroses, about 74 animals in Ujung Kulon National Park at the western tip of Java.
The Bornean orangutan, which is shared between Malaysia and Indonesia, is now listed as critically endangered. Its population is estimated at less than 14 percent of its historical level, with most of that decline in recent decades as forest was cleared for logging and oil-palm plantations.
The ranking has changed because more species are being assessed and because some of the best-known ones really are disappearing. Both trends point to the same tropical countries. For the island at the top of the 2022 table, see our guide to Madagascar’s lemurs and wildlife. Ecuador’s best-known endemic species feature in the wildlife of the Galápagos, and one of the main pressures on Brazil’s rising total is described in our account of deforestation in the Amazon.