Extinct animals and plants

Woolly Mammoth

1700 BCE

An enormous mammal, believed to be closely related to the modern-day elephant.The creature was over 4 metres tall and could weigh over 6 tons. They were covered in fur and their curved tusks could easily be up to 5 metres long! The Woolly Mammoth eventually disappeared 10,000 years ago through a combination of hunting by humans and the disappearance of its habitat through climate change.

Sabre-toothed Cat

30 BCE

Often called Sabre-toothed Tigers or Sabre-toothed Lions, they existed 55 million to 11,700 years ago. Sabre-tooth Cats were carnivores named for the elongated bladelike canine teeth, which in some species were up to 50cm long. Quite bear-like in build, they were believed to be excellent hunters and hunted animals such as sloths and mammoths.

Dodo

1662

An extinct flightless bird that inhabited Mauritius, the Dodo was about one metre tall and may have weighed 10–18 kg. It is presumed the bird became flightless due to the availability of abundant food sources (seeds, roots and fallen fruits) and a relative absence of predators. Dutch sailors first recorded a mention of the dodo in 1598. The bird was hunted to extinction by sailors and their domesticated animals, and invasive species.

Stellers Sea Cow

1768

Named after George Steller, a naturalist who discovered the creature in 1741, Stellers Sea Cow was a large herbivorous mammal. It is believed that Stellers Sea Cow which grew to at least 8-9 metres and weighed around 8-10 tons, inhabited the Near Islands, southwest of Alaska and the Commander Islands in the Bering Sea. Within 27 years of discovery by Europeans, Steller’s Sea Cow was hunted to extinction.

Great Auk

1844

A large and flightless bird found in the North Atlantic and as far south as Northern Spain. It had an average height of 75-85 cm and weighed about 5kg. The Great Auk was a powerful swimmer which helped it to hunt underwater for food. The last of these birds was killed by three men who caught it on St Kilda, Scotland in 1844. When a large storm surged, they believed that the auk was a witch and was causing the storm, so they killed it.

Passenger Pigeon

1914

Native to North America, the Passenger or Wild Pigeon has been extinct since the early 20th century. By the 19th century pigeon meat was commercialized as a cheap food for the poor, which resulted in hunting on a massive scale. The Passenger Pigeon died out in the wild by around 1900, with the last known individual dying in captivity in 1914.

Tasmanian Tiger

1936

Native to Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, the Tasmanian Tiger was a large carnivorous marsupial. Not related to tigers, the creature had the appearance of a medium-to-large-size dog (it weighed 30kg with a nose to tail length of almost 2 metres) but dark stripes gave it a tiger-like appearance. The last wild Tasmanian Tiger was killed between 1910 and 1920, with the last captive one dying in Hobart Zoo, Tasmania in 1936.

West African Black Rhinoceros

2011

The West African Black Rhinoceros was found in several countries towards the southeast region of Africa. Measuring 3-3.8 metres long and 1.4-1.7 metres in height, this rhino would have weighed 800-1,300 kg. It had two horns, one measuring 0.5-1.3 metres and the other between 2-55cm. Their diet included leafy plants and shoots. Some believe their horns had medicinal properties – though this had no grounding in scientific fact – which lead to heavy poaching.

Cyrtandra olona

2016

The last time this shrub was observed on the mountains of Kaua’i was in 1909, and it likely disappeared due to competition with non-native plants introduced by humans. It was added to the IUCN’s extinct species list in 2016.