extinct animals

Quagga: half zebra, half horse (extinct since 1883)

One of Africa's most famous extinct animals, the quagga was a subspecies of the plains zebra, which was once found in great numbers in South Africa's Cape Province and the southern part of the Orange Free State. It was distinguished from other zebras by having the usual vivid marks on the front part of the body only. In the mid-section, the stripes faded and the dark, inter-stripe spaces became wider, and the hindquarters were a plain brown. The name comes from a Khoikhoi word for zebra and is onomatopoeic, being said to resemble the quagga's call.

The quagga was originally classified as an individual species, Equus quagga, in 1788. Over the next fifty years or so, many other zebras were described by naturalists and explorers. Because of the great variation in coat patterns (no two zebras are alike), taxonomists were left with a great number of described "species", and no easy way to tell which of these were true species, which were subspecies, and which were simply natural variants. Long before this confusion was sorted out, the quagga had been hunted to extinction for meat, hides, and to preserve feed for domesticated stock. The last wild quagga was probably shot in the late 1870s, and the last specimen in captivity died on August 12, 1883 at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.

Because of the great confusion between different zebra species, particularly among the general public, the quagga had become extinct before it was realized that it appeared to be a separate species. The quagga was the first extinct creature to have its DNA studied. Recent genetic research at the Smithsonian Institution has demonstrated that the quagga was in fact not a separate species at all, but diverged from the extremely variable plains zebra.





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Thylacine: the Tasmanian Tiger (extinct since 1936)

The Thylacine was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. Native to Australia and New Guinea, it is thought to have become extinct in the 20th century. It is commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger (due to its striped back), and also known as the Tasmanian Wolf, and colloquially the Tassie (or Tazzy) Tiger or simply the Tiger. It was the last extant member of its genus, Thylacinus, although a number of related species have been found in the fossil record dating back to the early Miocene.

The Thylacine became extinct on the Australian mainland thousands of years before European settlement of the continent, but survived on the island of Tasmania along with a number of other endemic species such as the Tasmanian Devil. Intensive hunting encouraged by bounties is generally blamed for its extinction, but other contributory factors may have been disease, the introduction of dogs, and human encroachment into its habitat. Despite being officially classified as extinct, sightings are still reported.




Passenger pigeon

The earliest settlers in the New World were amazed by the passenger pigeon, a bird with flocks so huge that it would take days for them to travel overhead, blackening the sky as they passed. Any farmer who had the misfortune of hosting passenger pigeons for a meal would quickly find his entire crop decimated within the blink of an eye. Then, virtually overnight, the most abundant bird in North America suddenly disappeared from the planet.
The extinction of the passenger pigeon is an example of nature coming into direct conflict with man. Its population numbered an astounding 3 to 5 billion when the first Europeans arrived in America. However, there was not room enough in the New World for both species. Passenger pigeons were soon wiped out due to merciless hunting, deforestation and other factors related to humankind's ever-expanding range. The extinction was only becoming apparent at the start of the 20th century; by 1914, the last known bird was dead.

THE BLUE PIKE
Extinct

The blue pike was an endemic fish of the Great Lakes region in the United States and Canada. It was once commonly found in the waters of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and the Niagara River. The blue pike preferred cool, clear waters, living in deep water in summer, and switching to near shore waters as they cooled and became less murky in the winter.

The blue pike was pursued intensely by commercial and sport fishers, who together landed a billion pounds of the fish between 1885 and 1962. At times, the blue pike made up more than 50 percent of the commercial catch in Lake Erie.
At the same time the fishing industry was growing in the Great Lakes, the number of Euroamerican settlers in the region was increasing as well. With the increasing human population came increased habitat degradation. The settlers drained marshes and wetlands, built dams in tributary rivers, and caused large increases in the amount of pollution and sediment that entered the lakes.
All of these actions contributed to the deterioration of the cool, clear habitat needed by the blue pike. During the 1900s, several non-native species of fish were introduced to the Great Lakes, including the sea lamprey, alewife, and rainbow smelt. These contributed to the decline of the blue pike through predation and competition.
The population crashed in 1958, but the blue pike lingered on until it became extinct in 1970.
In the same general time period, three other species of fish endemic to the Great Lakes also disappeared. These were the deepwater cisco (C. johannae) in the 1950's, native to Lake Huron and Lake Michigan; the blackfin cisco (Coregonus nigripinnis) in the 1960s, native to all of the Lakes except Erie; and the longjaw cisco (C. alpenae) in the 1970's, native to Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan.
Each of these species succumbed to the cumulative effects of overexploitation by fishers, pollution, siltation and other forms of habitat degradation due to development, and predation and competition from non-native species.