The existence of this rodent was discovered thanks to analysis of craniums found in wads of undigested prey regurgitated by southern Australian owls.
Notomys robustus (Broad-cheeked hopping mouse) Read more: The first mammal has become extinct due to climate change Scientists haven’t spotted a specimen since 2009 and the IUCN declared the species extinct in 2016. The animal’s habitat, limited to a surface area of under five hectares and an elevation of less than three metres, suffered from increasingly frequent storms, which gradually destroyed the native vegetation on which the melomys depended. It lived exclusively on a small coral island in the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea. This small rodent can claim the unenviable posthumous title of being the first mammal species to go extinct directly due to the effects of anthropogenic climate change. The species was already rare at the beginning of the 20th century and disappeared between the 1930s and 1940s, perhaps due to feral cats. These rats were known for building large nests in their native habitats in southern Australia. Leporillus apicalis (Lesser stick-nest rat) Illustration of a dog of the Dusicyon genus, similar to Dusicyon avus © Wikimedia Commons The species was added to the IUCN’s list in 2015. According to analyses of these fossils, it would appear that the species went extinct between 326 and 496 years ago, possibly because of hunting and competition with domestic dogs. Fossilised remains found in tombs suggest it may have been domesticated. This canid was once found in the grassy plains of Patagonia and the Pampas, in South America. Scientists believe it went extinct because of the introduction of cats and changes in land use. The small nocturnal rodent native to Australia, belonging to the Conilurus genus, was described thanks to the retrieval of fossilised remains. It was declared extinct by the IUCN in 2016.Ĭonilurus capricornensis (Capricorn rabbit-rat) It’s believed that the decline of the species is linked to the arrival of mice and foxes to Australia. Scientists only ever observed one specimen, in 1933, and it hasn’t been seen since. The small marsupial belonged to the Potorous genus. Below is a list of the 160 plants and animals we’ll never see again.
Generally, a species can be declared extinct with certainty only after decades without it being sighted. These are mostly little-known – perhaps not so charismatic – beings, such as many invertebrates, and most of them have been gone for a long time. The list of species declared extinct in the last decadeĭuring the decade that just ended (2010-2019), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared the extinction of 160 species. Overall, it’s a loss for all life on Earth. There’s no way back from extinction and the loss of a species determines the definitive disappearance of a particular tile in the mosaic of life, which had evolved and adapted to a certain environment.
The list of species that have gone extinct, directly or indirectly, because of Homo sapiens is immense, and requires constant updating. African elephants are among the species that we risk losing forever © Ingimage Extinction is forever In a negligible amount of time we’ve devastated entire ecosystems, hunted many animals to extinction, introduced invasive species, altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere and climactic and chemical balance of the oceans. Human activities are, notoriously, the triggering factor behind this phenomenon. In the last one hundred years, however, these figures have grown exponentially: the current rate of extinction is estimated to be around one thousand species per year.
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