Neontology is a part of biology. In contrast to paleontology, it deals with living (or, more generally, recent) organisms. It is the study of extant taxa (singular: extant taxon): taxa (such as species, genera and families) with members still alive, as opposed to (all) being extinct. For example:

• The moose is an extant species while the dodo is an extinct species.
• In the group of molluscs known as the cephalopods, there were approximately 600 extant species and 7,500 extinct species.