Germany: Mappable, along with a researcher Julia Griehl who is writing a thesis on the protection of terrestrial mammal species, has published an digital map of the global distribution of mammals.
The map above shows the distribution areas of more than 5,000 species of terrestrial mammals in total. The distribution data was obtained from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The data lists all known mammals, classified into different categories spanning from low concern to a high risk of extinction.
Mappable has mapped all distribution areas on top of each other with a very low opacity (2%) using QGIS. Areas of full saturation consequently have a density of more than 50 species. The company confessed in the blog that the only hitch it faced was the enormous data size and processing time. Mappable had to exclude extinct species and delete marine distribution areas of some terrestrial mammals, such as seals, by clipping along coastlines using Natural Earth data.
Source: Mappable
