All species eventually go extinct or evolve into another species.
There have been periodic mass extinctions, when the rate of extinction greatly exceeds the background rate. The most well-known mass extinction occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period when the dinosaurs became extinct. That extinction is believed to have been caused by a meteor striking the earth in the Gulf of Mexico. The largest mass extinction seen in the fossil record, however, occurred at the end of the Permian, before there were land plants or insects. Currently, species are becoming extinct at very high rate, one that some ecologists believe may lead to a mass extinction on the order of those at the end of the Cretaceous and Permian.