A new study has measured an ongoing mass extinction event. As per the study, humans are largely responsible for this extinction. And the event is occurring for the sixth time in our planet. The paper has been published in the journal Science Advances.

Scientists have been warning regarding the dangers of biodiversity loss since long. Now, a new study has come up with quantification of an ongoing mass extinction event. Humans are mainly held responsible for this large mass extinction.

Approximately nine vertebrate species should have vanished from the earth since 1900, if this measure is considered. In the published paper, extinction count is at 477 and takes place over the course of 10,000 years.

According to Paul Ehrlich, senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and co-author of the study, the species extinction rate is the highest in 65 million years.

According to Seth Finnegan, an assistant professor in UC Berkeley's integrative biology department who specializes in mass extinction, "This study doesn't take the inferential approach. They are tallying up well-documented, well-observed extinctions of mammals".

He said that the researchers' study is different from other studies that probably estimate modern extinction rates circuitously. Some of the studies measure areas of habitats that have been destroyed and then extrapolate extinction predictions on the basis of number of species that are believed to live in those areas.