Welcome to the ‘Homogenocene’: how humans are making the world’s wildlife dangerously samey

By Mark Williams, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Leicester
Jan Zalasiewicz, Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Leicester

The age of humans is increasingly an age of sameness. Across the planet, distinctive plants and animals are disappearing, replaced by species that are lucky enough to thrive alongside humans and travel with us easily. Some scientists have a word for this reshuffling of life: the Homogenocene.

Evidence for it is found in the world’s museums. Storerooms are full of animals that no longer walk among us, pickled in spirit-filled jars: coiled snakes, bloated fish, frogs, birds. Each extinct species marks the…

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