Author: Doreen Fräßdorf

Doreen Fräßdorf ist Autorin und Betreiberin von artensterben.de. Sie recherchiert und schreibt über ausgestorbene und vom Aussterben bedrohte Arten in der Neuzeit – mit Schwerpunkt auf Roten Listen, wissenschaftlichen Studien, historischen Quellen und aktuellen Schutzbemühungen. Ziel ist eine verständliche, faktenbasierte Einordnung komplexer Entwicklungen rund um Biodiversitätsverlust und Artenschutz. Sie ist außerdem Autorin eines Sachbuchs über ausgestorbene Säugetiere der Neuzeit.
Pteralopex anceps verwandt mit P- pulchra Berg-Affengesichtflughund
The Bougainville monkey-faced flying fox (Pteralopex anceps) is a relative of the montane monkey-faced bats that also comes from the Solomon Islands. (© DeadMonkey8984, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Mammals

Montane Monkey-faced Bat

Only one documented specimen Australian biologist Tim Flannery discovered the montane monkey-faced bat in 1990 during a study of the mammals of the South Pacific region. It was immediately clear to him that it was a previously unknown flying fox species. The striking red eyes, the black and white spotted

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corquin raubfrosch
This is what the Corquin robber frog, now probably extinct, looked like. Its speckled back and dark banding on the legs are characteristic. (© 2003 Wilson and McCranie in The Conversation Status of the Herpetofauna of Honduras)
Amphibians

Corquin Robber Frog

Honduran frog species with a small range The Corquin robber frog lived in the constantly misty and humid montane rainforest, at an elevation of 1,400 to 1,840 meters above sea level, in Montaña de Celaque National Park in western Honduras. Its former range in the Cordillera de Celaque mountain range,

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galapagos-reisratte / verwandte der darwin-reisratte
The rice rat subspecies Aegialomys galapagoensis galapagoensis (pictured), which was once native to the Galápagos island of San Cristóbal, is extinct, as is the Darwin's Galápagos mouse from Santa Cruz. (© Richard Owen 1838, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Mammals

Darwin’s Galápagos Mouse

The name darwini seems appropriate The first rodent native to the Galápagos Islands was collected by the naturalist Charles Darwin on San Cristóbal in 1835: Mus galapagoensis. Seven further species of endemic rodents were subsequently discovered on four other islands of the Galápagos Archipelago. At least four of these species

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Amerikanische Sackmotte Coleophora leucochrysella
A photo of the American casebearer moth published on iNaturalist in June 2020 shows that, contrary to earlier assumptions, this species is not extinct. Scientists had previously believed that the insect from the casebearer moth family disappeared between 1904 and 1950. (© Steven Whitebread, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Insects

Chestnut casebearer moth

Chestnut blight from East Asia devastated more than just the American chestnut The American chestnut casebearer moth relied on the native American chestnut (Castanea dentata) for survival. This hardwood tree was the sole host plant for its larvae, ultimately leading to the highly specialized moth species’ downfall. Once one of

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babiroussa
Drawing of a deer-pig by the naturalist painter Jean-Charles Werner (1830). Like wild boar (Sus scrofa), babirusas have two lower tusks that grow out of the side of their mouth. In addition, deer-pigs have two particularly large upper tusks that break through the trunk and are up to 30 centimeters long. (© Sitron, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Mammals

Bola Batu Babirusa

Half deer, half pig The animal with the strange-sounding name Bola Batu babirusa is a presumably extinct species of deer-pigs (Babyrousa)—a combination of the Indonesian words for Deer and Pig. Scientists disagree about whether the species found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is extinct or still alive, and whether

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Craugastor longirostris
Craugastor longirostris: A frog native to Ecuador that also belongs to the genus Craugastor. (© Mauricio Rivera Correa, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons)
Amphibians

McCranie’s robber frog

McCranie’s robber frog: An unfortunate name The biologist James McCranie was not at all happy with the common name McCranie’s robber frog or McCranie’s Robber Frog that was given to the frog species Craugastor chrysozetetes. He would have preferred a name that reflected the species’ locality, such as Cerro Búfalo Streamside Frog. The

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Emperoptera mirabilis Koolau-Spornflügel-Langbeinfliege
A drawing of the extinct Koolau spur-winged long-legged fly from Fauna Hawaiiensis (1899 to 1913). (© various authors, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Insects

Koolau Spur-winged Long-legged Fly

A fly that could not fly The tiny Koolau spur-winged long-legged fly, measuring between 15 and 18 millimeters, had no wings and was therefore flightless. Instead of wings, it had spurs about one millimeter long. The reduction or loss of flight organs in animals can occur as an expression of

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The extinct Antiguan curly-tailed lizard, like the still-living Northern curly-tailed lizard Leiocephalus carinatus (pictured), belongs to the genus of curly-tailed lizards. (© Ianaré Sévi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Reptiles

Antiguan curly-tailed lizard

A reptile of disgusting appearance A Mrs. Lanaghan (also Lanagan) provided in 1844 in Antigua and the Antiguans a description of a reptile that could be the Antiguan curly-tailed lizard. She described a ground-dwelling lizard that was “considerably larger” than those in trees. Along its body ran “longitudinal blood-red stripes”

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vietnamesisches nashorn Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus
Head of a male Vietnamese Javan rhinoceros that was shot around 1930 in Perak on the Malay Peninsula. It is now kept at the Raffles Museum in Singapore. (© Kloss, C. Boden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Mammals

Vietnamese Javan Rhinoceros

Subspecies believed extinct rediscovered in 1988 The supposedly extinct subspecies of the Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus), the Annamite Javan rhinoceros or Annamite rhinoceros, was not rediscovered until 1988. At first, it was assumed that the rhinoceros subspecies, which once inhabited a large part of Southeast Asia, had become extinct as

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