Nature Atlas
Claims this atlas currently marks as unsettled or as tested and found false. A debated fact is one scholars hold competing positions on; a debunked one has been checked against the record and found not to hold. Both are kept in view rather than quietly smoothed over, with the reasoning that put each one where it stands.
25 statements marked Debated.
Monarch Butterfly, Population Estimate225000000.000000
Monarch Butterfly, Species
Standing
Concerns Population Estimate
Currently States 225000000.000000
Monarch numbers are commonly measured by the area of forest their overwintering colonies occupy in Mexico rather than by a direct count of individuals, then converted to a population estimate; the conversion factor itself is debated among researchers, and year-to-year totals have swung by an order of magnitude, so any single figure understates the volatility.
Okavango Delta, Area (sq km)15000.000000
Okavango Delta, Ecosystems
Standing
Concerns Area (sq km)
Currently States 15000.000000
The flooded extent of the delta varies seasonally from roughly 6,000 square kilometers in the dry season to as much as 15,000 to 22,000 square kilometers at peak flood; this figure reflects a commonly cited maximum extent.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Pantanal, Area (sq km)150000.000000
Pantanal, Ecosystems
Standing
Concerns Area (sq km)
Currently States 150000.000000
Estimates range from roughly 150,000 to 195,000 square kilometers depending on the boundary definition used and seasonal flood extent; this figure reflects a commonly cited conservative estimate.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Sumatran Tiger, Population Estimate600.000000
Sumatran Tiger, Species
Standing
Concerns Population Estimate
Currently States 600.000000
Published estimates for the remaining wild population range from under 400 to roughly 600 individuals depending on survey year and method; camera-trap-based density estimates for a wide-ranging, low-density forest predator carry substantially more uncertainty than a count of a visible, aggregated species, so this figure is the upper end of recent published estimates, not a settled number.
Source IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Vaquita, Population Estimate10.000000
Vaquita, Species
Standing
Concerns Population Estimate
Currently States 10.000000
Acoustic and visual survey estimates in the low double digits and falling; because the species is small, shy and now extremely rare, individual surveys disagree on the exact count from one year to the next and some individuals may go undetected, so no published figure is treated as a precise census, only as evidence the population is critically small. This atlas records the lower end of recently published estimates rather than implying false precision.
Source IUCN Red List of Threatened Species