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Extinct Animals

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dinosaurs

Wonder Is Everywhere: A Message in an Egg Carton, Millions of Confused Bees, and More From Around the Web

Get a peek into what we’re obsessed with right now.
April White September 15, 2023
Sydney, Australia

Thylacine Taxidermy

A rare specimen of an iconic extinct animal in downtown Sydney.
This seems like a perfectly reasonable way to decorate a home in a fancy neighborhood. Maybe?
lighthouses

Wonder Is Everywhere: A Fight Over Optimus Prime, the Richmond Rat Boy, and More From Around the Web

Get a peek into what we’re obsessed with right now.
April White June 9, 2023
Puerto Ayora, Ecuador

Lonesome George at the Fausto Llerena Breeding Center

An exhibition devoted to the life (and posthumous taxidermy form) of the last known representative of the Pinta Island Tortoises.
Science just saved this cute little fish from extinction.
extinct animals

Inside the Years-Long, International Effort to Save One Tiny Mexican Fish

Scientists and schoolchildren worked together to bring the tequila fish back from extinction.
Sarah Durn January 13, 2022
insects

Podcast: Grasshopper Glacier

Join us for a daily celebration of the world’s most wondrous, unexpected, even strange places.
The Podcast Team April 8, 2021
The great auk statue
Iceland

Great Auk Sculpture at Valahnúkamöl

This five-foot-tall bronze bird is a memorial to a species that was hunted out of existence.
In Brisbane, platypuses are getting harder to find.
animals

The Quiet Disappearance of Australia's Urban Platypuses

Newspapers used to describe sightings of dozens at a time. These days, one researcher says, "most Australians have never seen one."
Graham Readfern February 15, 2021
Oh, nose! Cave bears' diet-limiting sinuses may have been what spelled doom for the Ice Age beasts.
caves

Why Europe's Cave Bears Were—and Weren't—Made for Hunkering Down

Their big sinuses were both an evolutionary boon and bust.
Isaac Schultz April 3, 2020
Meet the reticulated flatwoods salamander (<em>Ambystoma bishopi</em>).
zoos

Can a Salamander Find Salvation in San Antonio?

A zoo lab's successful captive-breeding program may be the best hope for this critically endangered amphibian.
Jennifer S. Holland March 16, 2020
The island's routine lava flows give researchers a number of ecological timestamps.
islands

How Reading Lava Flows Reveals a Lost Paradise

Human harm is burned into Réunion’s ecological record.
Isaac Schultz February 25, 2020
Love fades.
animals

How a Minnesota Town Fell In and Out of Love With Its Ginormous Geese

Like most human-fowl relationships, it's complicated.
Molly Monk February 13, 2020
The Tasmanian devil, a talisman of Australian wildlife, was catalogued and illustrated by John and Elizabeth Gould in the mid-19th century, then rendered as a lithograph by H.C. Richter.
art

See Australian Fauna in These Audubon-esque Illustrations

The 19th-century lithographs document a unique biodiversity that’s slipping away.
Isaac Schultz February 6, 2020
Today nearly 7,000 Père David's deer roam the wetlands of China.
natural history

The French Missionary and the English Duke Who Saved a Chinese Deer From Extinction

A conservation tale 120 years in the telling. 
Marina Wang January 24, 2020
The spring pygmy sunfish, blue and ready to breed.
cars

A Tiny Alabama Fish, Twice Declared Extinct, Lives On Near a Car Factory

The spring pygmy sunfish and a Mazda Toyota plant are going to be neighbors.
Sabrina Imbler January 6, 2020
Part of the Victoria Fossil Cave network, where the prehistoric marsupials were found.
extinct animals

Ice Age Australia Had Giant, Clawed, Swole Marsupials in Its Trees

Something like a koala, except the size of a rhino.
Isaac Schultz September 18, 2019
Somewhere within the halls of the Strasbourg Zoological Museum, you might stumble upon a hoax.
natural history museums

Zoology’s Favorite Hoax Was an Island Rat That Hopped on Its Nose

Harald Strümpke didn’t just create a lost archipelago, he created a sensation.
Sabrina Imbler September 3, 2019
skulls

For Sale: A Bison's Skull Straight From the Ice Age

The safe way to encounter horns this big.
Isaac Schultz August 2, 2019