by ELIZAH LEIGH, Contributing Writer

They don’t vogue for the camera or strut the catwalk in search of fame and fortune, but one might easily imagine that “America’s Hottest Species” refers to nature’s most attractive critters. In actuality, those three telling words adorn the cover of The Endangered Species Coalition’s most recent report. Yes, it’s certainly getting hot in here, but the escalating mercury can’t be attributed to the supermodel good looks of ten select animals – the reality is that they are teetering on the verge of extinction due to global warming.

This type of research is hard to swallow since it makes the reality of climate change all the more tangible, but animals are particularly vulnerable to what is happening in our environment. They are in effect “canaries in the coalmine,” demonstrating that as our temperatures rise, their populations succumb to stress, habitat loss, reproduction challenges and compromised food sources, all of which contribute to species decline. Those who silently take comfort in such a seemingly low number of casualties might want to consider the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s perception. They suggest that if we continue living like it’s 1999 and bump up our global temperatures by three to five degrees, a full 20 to 30 percent of the wildlife around the world will suffer from the same uncertain future.

Here’s the rundown of the top ten U.S. based imperiled wildlife species: