505 - SB2 - Extinction

Reasons for extinction 

• Genetics and demographic phenomena
• Genetic pollution
• Habitat degradation
• Predation, competition and disease
• Coextincition
• Climate change
• Greed of man

The Dodo

Perhaps the most famous extinct species, the dodo - endemic to Mauritius - was wiped out in just a few decades. The first recorded mention of the flightless bird was by Dutch sailors in 1598; the last sighting of one in 1662. It owes much of its fame to its appearance in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  On its website the Natural History Museum says: "Despite the abundance of the dodo on Mauritius during the 17th century, very little remains in museums as evidence of its existence. There are a few partial skeletons of the bird; a skull in Copenhagen, a beak in Prague, a foot at the Natural History Museum and a head and foot in Oxford. The one known complete stuffed bird was in the collection of John Tradescant who bequeathed it to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Here, the specimen was allowed to rot, so that by 1755 the directors of the Museum consigned it to the bonfire. It is thanks to the dedication of one curator from the Ashmolean Museum that the head and foot were saved and these are now in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History."

Western black rhinoceros

This subspecies of the black rhino once roamed sub-Saharan Africa, but fell victim to poaching. Its population was in the hundreds in 1980, fell to 10 by 2000, and just five a year later. Surveys in 2006 failed to locate any and it was declared extinct in 2011.

Tasmanian tiger

A shy, nocturnal animal and similar in appearance to a dog (but with a stiff tail and abdominal pouch), the Tasmanian tiger was rare or extinct on the Australian mainland before the arrival of the British, but survived on Tasmania. Hunting, disease, the introduction of dogs and human encroachment all contributed to its demise there. The last known specimen died in Hobart Zoo in 1936.

Woolly mammoth

The woolly mammoth, which reached heights in excess of three metres and weighed up to six tonnes, coexisted with early humans, who used its bones and tusks for making tools and dwellings and also hunted it for food. Small populations survived on St Paul Island, off the coast of Alaska, and Wrangel Island, in the Arctic Ocean, until 5,600 and 4,000 years ago, respectively.