extinct species

Species that became extinct because of humans. I try to keep this blog active Languages: english and finnish

[sixth-extinction]

At one time, the Eskimo curlew or northern curlew (Numenius borealis) may have been the most abundant shorebird in North America. In the late 1800′s, about two million of these birds were killed per year, and they quickly became very scarce.

The last known Eskimo curlew was killed in Barbados in 1963, though occasional unconfirmed sightings have been reported since then. It is officially classified by the IUCN as critically endangered, but was likely extinct by the late 1960′s. If any survive, the population is likely tiny, numbering 50 or fewer individuals.

Top image: A mounted specimen at the Field Museum in Chicago. [x] Second image: Photograph of a live Eskimo curlew taken on Galveston Island in 1962. [x] Third image: The Smithsonian Institution’s collection of 16 Eskimo curlew specimens. [x]

[todaysbird]

a taxidermy specimen of a juvenile male pied raven. this individual was collected in 1878; the last sighting of these birds was 1902. the pied raven was a color morph of a subspecies of common raven found solely on the faroe islands. fetching high prices for their skins, the birds were hunted to extinction due to their unusual coloration. it is possible to see similar specimens in the common raven today due to leucism, a genetic mutation possible in any species that creates a partial lack of melanin.

[sixth-extinction]

Bali tigers (Panthera tigris balica) interacting with handlers in Ringling Bros. Circus, early 1900s. Reposted from @squaresolid.

[australiaanimalia]

†Gastric-brooding Frog (Rheobatrachus)

There were two species of Rheobatrachus, and they were pretty special. Their name refers to the unique way they incubated their young, different than any other known species of frog. Females swallowed fertilized eggs and once in her stomach acid production would cease, thought due to a chemical contained in the egg jelly. For at least six weeks, the mother ate nothing while the tadpoles developed inside her stomach, which would swell to an enormous size in the body cavity. She vomited them up as fully formed frogs!

They lived in streams and pools, being heavily aquatic. The rarer Northern species, R. vitellinus, occurred in rainforests of the Clarke Range in central eastern Queensland. These frogs were a dark pale brown, with slimy bumpy skin and vivid yellow patches along the underside. R. silus, the Southern frog, was recorded more frequently, living in the Conondale Ranges and Blackall Range in southeast Queensland. It was smaller, more grey in colour, had a cream underside, and dark brown limbs with yellow underneath. R. silus was kept in captivity until the early 1980s, being of great interest to the scientific community. Despite extensive searching none have been seen since 1981. In 1985 chytrid fungus was found in the range of the Northern gastric-brooding frogs, and many dead frogs of other species were observed. It is believed that the spread of chytrid was largely responsible for the extinction of both species.

In 2013, The Lazarus Project was successful in creating a living early-embryo containing DNA of R. Slius. The project hopes to “de-extinct” the Gastric-brooding frog by cloning.

[sixth-extinction]

A rare taxidermied bluebuck (Hippotragus leucophaeus) displayed along with other extinct animals including a quagga, toolache wallaby, huia, Cuban macaw and Carolina parakeet at the Naturhistorische Museum in Vienna, Austria. Photo by Sandstein, 2009.

There are just four bluebuck skins in the world, and the Vienna specimen is the only female among them.

[rubicunda]

Glaucopsyche xerces (Xerces Blue)

photo: Larry Orsak

Once inhabiting San Francisco, the extinct Xerces blue butterfly was last observed in 1941. Its small periwinkle wings once included many pattern variations across the species. Due to habitat loss, the Xerces blue is noted as one of the first North American butterflies to go extinct by human activity. In 1971, The Xerces Society was founded as an invertebrate conservation effort in light of this loss.

[fyeah-history]

Syrian Wild Ass in London Zoo, 1872 The Syrian Wild Ass (Equus hemionus hemippus), less commonly known as a hemippe, is an extinct subspecies of onager (Equus hemionus) that ranged across Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq.

[endlingmusings]

A Caspian tigress and her cub featured on a postage stamp [ x ]

[endlingmusings]

A review by Jeff Klinkenberg of Mark Jerome Walters’ book “A Shadow and A Song”, which details the story of the dusky seaside sparrow’s extinction and those who tried to save it. The review was published in the Tampa Bay Times on January 24th, 1993. [ x ]

[endlingmusings]

“Qi Qi” (d. 2002) and “Zhen Zhen” (d. 1988), a pair of captive baiji that lived at the Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan, China. [ x ]

[endlingmusings]

A mounted specimen of the now-extinct Guadalupe storm petrel, on display at the National Museum of Scotland. [ x ]

[warcrimesimulator]

The only photograph of a live Sicilian wolf (Canis lupus cristaldii), late 19th century. 

The Sicilian wolf was a subspecies of grey wolf that was endemic to Sicily and declared extinct in 1924. It was identified as a distinct subspecies from the mainland Italian wolf (Canis lupus italicus) in 2018 through morphological examinations of mounted specimens and analyses of mtDNA extracted from the teeth of several skulls.

[endlingmusings]

[ A 1907 illustration of a Rodrigues solitaire by artist Frederick William Frohawk ]

Scientists at the Natural History Museum, UK, have discovered that a strange knob-like ball on the wings of an extinct bird species called the Rodrigues Solitaire was a deadly weapon, used by the bird to defend territory and its mate.

The Rodrigues Solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria) was a giant flightless pigeon that, like its closest relative the dodo (Raphus cucullatus), became extinct soon after European explorers settled in its habitat. It had a knob-like ball on its wings and although it was known to be aggressive, it was unclear what this structure was for, until now.

Dr Julian Hume and Dr Lorna Steel studied records from the 18th and 19th centuries, when many detailed studies were written by Europeans explorers in Rodrigues, on the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean. They also analyzed in microscopic detail the ball structures on fossil solitaire bones.

They found that the so called ‘musket ball’ was indeed a weapon and that it was not found in any other bird. The largest they uncovered grew to 1.3 inches (3.3 cm), nearly as large as a ping-pong ball.

- Excerpt from “Researchers Reveal Unique Wing Weapon of Extinct Bird Rodrigues Solitaire” on Sci-News.com.

[sixth-extinction]

A taxidermied Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) at the Darwin Museum in Moscow, Russia. [x]

[endlingmusings]

A taxidermied huia housed at the Auckland War Memorial Museum in Auckland, New Zealand. [ x ]

[thylacine-dreams]

An interestingly-posed thylacine from the Muséum-Aquarium de Nancy in France. It’s the first time I was able to find a decent picture of this mount! [x]

[todaysbird]

an aberrant (unusually colored) specimen of passenger pigeon (left) alongside a normally colored individual. the passenger pigeon, now extinct, was a pigeon species found in massive flocks throughout north america. once so common that large flocks could completely blanket the sky, the passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction.