(October 7, 2008)—When the Global Mammal Assessment project results are announced this week at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain, there will be at least seven Texas species on the globally threatened list.

Included on the list are three types of bat species, two types of kangaroo rat species, a species of cottontail rabbit and a species of gopher.

The Global Mammal Assessment, a collaboration of 1,700 scientists from 130 countries, provides information on the biology and conservation status of all of the world's approximately 5,500 mammalian species.

About one in four of these species are currently threatened with extinction at some level, according to the assessment.

The assessment's lead organization is the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) in Gland, Switzerland, but Texas A&M University is a major collaborator.

Dr. Thomas E. Lacher, Jr., Texas A&M University's wildlife and fisheries sciences department head at College Station, and Dr. John Lamoreux, research assistant in the department, are among 8,000 international environmental decision-makers attending the World Conservation Congress.

A key and lasting element of major importance to the scientific community, according to Lacher, is an online database of all the species in the assessment.

Dr. Lacher says the database is the most comprehensive and scientifically-based body of work ever compiled on threatened and endangered mammals.