A mere 1,000 years ago, giant flightless birds called moas inhabited the islands of New Zealand. There were more than a dozen species of moa and the largest of these may have weighed more than 200 kilograms and stood 2 to 3 meters high. Continue Reading »
Its current scientific name is Dusicyon australis, meaning foolish dog of the south, alluding to its lack of fear of man. The Falkland Islands Wolf is larger than any others of the South American canids. It stood up about 60 cm (24 inches) high at the shoulders, and had a brownish-grey fur with black ears and a paler under body. Continue Reading »
GEOGRAPHIC RANGE
Dodos and solitaires are Extinct, no longer existing, but were once found on the Mascarene Islands of Mauritius, Rodrigues, and perhaps Réunion in the Indian Ocean. Continue Reading »
What is a Thylacine?
The Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus: dog-headed pouched-dog) is a large carnivorous marsupial now believed to be extinct. It was the only member of the family Thylacinidae to survive into modern times. It is also known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wolf. Continue Reading »
• Large breeding colonies of this flightless sea bird once gathered on rocky islands and coasts of the North Atlantic in Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the British Isles and Scandanavia. A strong swimmer, the great auk migrated to winter as far south as Florida and southern Spain. Continue Reading »
(Ectopistes migratorius)
Probably Once The Most Numerous Bird on Earth
It Is Now Extinct.
General Information
The Passenger Pigeon, once probably the most numerous bird on the planet, made its home in the billion or so acres of primary forest that once covered North America east of the Rocky Mountains. Their flocks, a mile wide and up to 300 miles long, were so dense that they darkened the sky for hours and days as the flock passed overhead. Population estimates from the 19th century ranged from 1 billion to close to 4 billion individuals. Total populations may have reached 5 billion individuals and comprised up to 40% of the total number of birds in North America (Schorger 1995). This may be the only species for which the exact time of extinction is known. Continue Reading »
Animals will make extraordinary and often mysterious expeditions to find a good meal, sexy mates, and the perfect place to raise a family. This month, billions of cicadas will burst out from their 17-year-old hiding places to complete one of the longer journeys in time, while moving only a few inches from burrow to daylight. Other migrations cover thousands of miles. - Corey Binns Continue Reading »
The Quagga was a close relative of horses and zebras. It was a yellowish-brown zebra with stripes only on its head, neck and shoulders and with pale legs. The quagga was native to desert areas of the African continent until it was exterminated in the wild in the 1870s. The last captive quaggas died in Europe in the 1880’s. Zoos sent the request “send more quaggas”, but there were no more quaggas left alive. It had been ruthlessly hunted for meat and leather by South African farmers and settlers. Continue Reading »
For the first time in decades, the hunting of the gray wolf is legal again in the United States. And that’s a good thing for ranchers like Cindy Siddoway of Terreton, Idaho, whose sheep are threatened every day by wolves.
“We have worked very hard to protect what we have, and it’s not very successful,” she said. “It is devastating for us to put all of the money and the time and the genetics and work to produce a great product and then just have it half-eaten and left to die.”
But wolf hunting isn’t popular with everybody. It has become a controversy in Idaho. Continue Reading »
Thousands of walruses are congregating on Alaska’s northwest coast, a sign that their Arctic sea ice environment has been altered by climate change.
Chad Jay, a U.S. Geological Survey walrus researcher, said Wednesday that about 3,500 walruses were near Icy Cape on the Chukchi Sea, some 140 miles southwest of Barrow.
Animals the agency tagged with satellite transmitters also were detected on shore at Cape Lisburne about 150 miles farther down the coast. Continue Reading »