What are the animal species that have now gone extinct?

Life is a game of survival of the fittest. Nothing and no one stays forever. But what remains is the heredity, the future upcoming generations. This rule applies for all the humans, the plant species, the animal species, the dinosaurs, the small insects. The evolution and extinction is a part of balancing the nature.

Today in every news channel, blog, and posts, we may find many endangered species. Just sticking tiger posters on bedroom walls or owning a stuffed panda will not help them in anyways. Then again, it's our way of keeping them close. Now with all these information available , we have all the data about the existence of world's rarest animal. 

Some Animals that went Extinct:

But do we ever question why do they disappear? How do they go away completely or what happens after their extinction? Here is an answer to all the queries. There may be plenty of reasons behind extinction of animal species like, climatic conditions, changes in sea level or blame the human activities. Given below is a list of all incredible animal species gone extinct.

Sabre-toothed Cat:

It was also known as the Sabre-toothed tigers or the Sabre toothed lions. Their existence was 55 million to 11,700 years ago. As expected they were carnivores with large bladelike canine teeth, some were 50 cm long. They were great hunters and loved to hunt sloths and mammoths. The main cause of their extinction is the decline in the herbivores species they hunted along with many climatic changes and their fight with competition with humans.

Woolly Mammoth:

They are believed to be related to modern day elephant. They migrated from Africa approx 3.5 million years ago and went to Northern Eurasia and North America. These creatures had height of 4 metres weighing 6 tons. As the name suggests they were fully covered with fur and their curved tusks was approx 5 metres long. These mammoths disappeared 10,000 years ago mainly because of human hunting and absence of habitat due to climatic change.

Stellers Sea Cow:

Species named after a naturalist George Steller who discovered it in 1741. They were large herbivorous mammal. It is said that they grew minimum 8-9 metres. Weighing 8-10 tons, they were found in Near islands, Southwest of Alaska and the Commander Islands in the Bering Sea. They were tame and loved eating kelp. The main reason behind their extinction was were huge body which made them easier prey for hunting.

Tasmanian Tiger:

These large carnivorous species belong to Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea. They were not related to tigers and they looked like a dog weighing 30kg with a nose to tail length of approx 2 metres. The dark stripes in their body resembles them like tigers. Human hunting, emergence of new breeds of dogs and diseases were marked as the major reasons of their extinction. 

Passenger Pigeon:

Also known as the wild pigeons were native to North America. It's marked that almost 3 to 5 billion Passenger Pigeon made US their home when the Europeans came in North America. The deforestation led to habitat loss and eventually reduced their population. Also by the 19th century pigeon meat was labeled as an affordable food for the poor. The last Wild Pigeon died out in the wild in 1900 and the last known died in captivity in 1914.

Pyrenean Ibex:

They were one of the four subspecies of the Spanish Ibex or the Iberian goat, that was common in the Iberian Peninsula. They mainly dependent on grasses and herbs and grew to a height of 60-76 cm at the shoulder and weigh 24-80 kg. They grew to a number of 50,000 but by the early 1900s they were numbered to fewer than 100. Scientists believe factors like poaching and the lack of ability survive in the wild for food led to their extinction.

Baiji White Dolphin:

Also known as the Chinese River Dolphin, were only found in the Yangtze River in China. They would grow upto eight feet in length and weigh approx quarter of a ton. Due to their tiny eyes and poor eyesight they would depend on echolocation to locate their prey. They lived in the Yangtze for more than 20 million years, but their population eventually declined from 1950s. The main cause of their decline was the rigorous use of the river for fishing, transportation and generation of hydroelectricity.

West African Black Rhinoceros:

These black rhinos were found in southeast countries of Africa. They were 3-3.8 metres long and 1.4-1.7 metres in height They normally weighed 800-1,300 kg. They had two horns one of 0.5-1.3 metres while the other was of 2-55cm. They relied on leafy plants and shoots for living, While some people claim that their horns had many medicinal properties, no scientific approval was given to this grounding. But that became a major reason for poaching.

Great Auk:

They were large flightless bird in the North Atlantic and in south of the northern Spain. With height of 75-85cm and weight of approx 5 kgs they were extremely powerful swimmer and used to hunt underwater for food. The last colony of the Auks lived on the island of Eldey and by 1835 they were all killed.

DoDo:

A flightless bird which was once found in Mauritius, they were one metre tall and weigh 10-18kg. Since the 17th century the illustrations regarding their appearance differed. They were flightless because of readily availability of food from sources like seeds, roots and fallen fruits. The mention of dodo birds was first recorded by the Dutch sailors in 1598. They were hunted down by sailors and their pet animals and also by many invasive species. They were last spotted in 1662.

Quagga:

They are subspecies of  Zebra and belonged to South Africa, they were famous for their unique stripes. They were soon hunted for their hide and were hunted down by ranchers who thought that these animals competed with livestock for grazing field. The last one died in year 1883 in the Amsterdam Zoo.

The Caribbean Monk Seal:

Often known as the West Indian seal or Sea wolf native to the Caribbean sea. They were popular for their fur, meat and oil which led them to their extinction. Another reason for their extinction was the coastal development and fishing impacted on the traditional habitats in the Caribbean sea and gulf of Mexico. They were last seen in the 1950s and were officially declared as extinct in 2008. This is the only seal species that went to extinct solely due to humans.

Why do Animals Go Extinct:

World is too big to explore. There are still mysteries to solve, species to discover and things to understand,  The World Resources Institute(WRI) said, "Scientists were startled in 1980 by the discovery of a tremendous diversity of insects in tropical forests. 

In one study of just 19 trees in Panama, 80% of the 1,200 beetle species discovered were previously unknown to science. Surprisingly, scientists have a better understanding of how many stars there are in the galaxy than how many species there are on Earth."

We Still Discover Species:

It's important to understand what else is to be explored, to cherish what do we have and what are we losing. According to scientists the rate at which we are losing species is 1,000-1,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.

There are nearly 2 million different species on our planet. Every year approx 20-2,000 extinctions occur. Given below are some of the major reasons that lead to the extinction of these animals:

• Asteroid strikes- We all are aware of the meteor impact on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico that caused the disappearance of dinosaurs over 65 million years ago. Today astronomers are always looking for the comets or meteors that would end the human civilization.
• Climatic changes- with the ongoing climatic changes all the terrestrial animals remain in treat. As we know after the end of ice age, 11,000 years ago mammals were not able to adapt with the warming temperatures and with lack of food and human predation they were soon gone forever. the threat of global warming is open today in modern civilization.
• Disease- not just disease alone but accompanied by hunger, loss of habitat or absence of genetic diversity or the birth of some new lethal virus or bacteria could create a havoc. Like the amphibians worldwide are falling prey to chytridiomycosis. A fungal infection that ravages the skin of frogs, toads and salamanders that finally lead to their deaths within a week.
• Loss of Habitat- With the growing industries and demand for land the forests are directly being cut down snatching the shelter place of wild animals.
• Falling genetic diversity- Once a species starts to be in danger it means the number of available options are less, giving them almost no choice to choose a perfect partner. Like the African cheetahs are prone to low genetic diversity making them unfit to survive in any other major environmental disruption.
• Other factors- survival competition, lack of food and pollution and ofcourse human mankind. With hunting, poaching and killing just for fun humans are the major cause of vanishing of many species.

Conclusion:

In fact, today there are many species on the verge of extinction. Some of these species are the mountain Gorilla, Arakan Forest Turtle, Darwin's Fox, Javan rhino, Brazilian Merganeser, Gharial, Vaquita, Mountain Gorilla, Florida Panther, Giant Panda, Beluga Sturgeon, Blue Whale, Blue Poison Dart Frog, Southern Cassowary, Loggerhead Turtle, Polar bear, Elkhorn and the Stag horn coral.

Anyways government is trying it's best to protect these species and bring them back from the verge of extinction but it also depends on people. If we together don't think about the livelihood of these animals and keep our greeds aside these species and many more will be extinct soon. Lets save these rare species. Read how?