Artensterben - Liste ausgestorbener Tiere seit dem 15. Jahrhundert

Life reconstruction of an aurochs bull found in Braunschweig. The skeleton served as a direct reference for the proportions and horns. Body shape and colour are based on current knowledge about the wild cattle. (© Jaap Rouwenhorst (photograph) DFoidl (GIMP modifications), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

16. May 2021 Doreen Fräßdorf

Aurochs

How a wild animal became a domestic animal The aurochs or ur is considered the first wild cattle domesticated by humans, to guarantee a steady supply of meat and milk and to have draft and working animals available. Domestication is always associated with physical changes as well: over time, the

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)

5. April 2021 Doreen Fräßdorf

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

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)

27. September 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

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”

This is what the Atlas bear may have looked like. (© Nicolas Maréchal, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

2. August 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Atlas bear

Beast hunts in the Roman Empire The Atlas bear is believed to have lived in the North African Atlas Mountains and the adjacent regions of Libya, Algeria, and Morocco. There are no photos, scientific illustrations, museum specimens, or complete skeletons of the Atlas bear. What remains are subfossil bones from

There are hardly any images of Acanthobrama hulensis. The photo shows the fish Acanthobrama telavivensis from Israel, which belongs to the same genus. (© MERRYcristhmas, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

18. July 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Hula bream

Drainage of lake and wetland led to extinction of fauna The wetlands surrounding the 20 square kilometer Hula Lake (also known as Hula Lake, Chula Lake) in Israel were artificially drained in the 1950s to create agricultural land. Within a few years, the endemic fauna of the lake—including the Hula

An illustration of the Honshu wolf created between 1833 and 1850 by Philipp Franz von Siebold. (© Carl Hubert de Villeneuve, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

9. June 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Honshū Wolf

Island dwarfism led to the smallest subspecies of the wolf The extinct Honshū wolf, which was only found on the Japanese islands of Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū, is considered the smallest subspecies of the wolf. Its body length was about 90 centimeters, and its shoulder height was 56 centimeters. The

weissbrust-brillenvogel / Zosterops albogularis

Drawing of the White-chested white-eye by John Gould (between 1840 and 1848). Gould was the first to describe the songbird scientifically in 1937. (© Rawpixel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

18. May 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

White-chested white-eye

Extinct in recent times The White-chested white-eye was native only to a forest area of five square kilometers at Mount Pitt on Norfolk Island. Norfolk Island lies east of Australia and north of New Zealand. Experts assume the bird species went extinct in recent times. The last confirmed sighting of

According to ornithologists Olson and Jouventin, the extinct Amsterdam duck was similar to the still extant, likewise flightless Auckland teal (Anas aucklandica; see image). The illustration by John Gerrard Keulemans appeared in Buller's Birds of New Zealand (1988). (© John Gerrard Keulemans, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

13. April 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Amsterdam duck

Barely larger than a thrush Both Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul are more than 3,000 kilometers away from continents. Nevertheless—or perhaps precisely because of this—the two islands were frequently visited by early seafarers and the animals that traveled with them, so that all endemic birds there had already been wiped

There is no photo of the passenger pigeon mite itself. The image shows mites using a dung beetle as a means of transport. (© Heiko Wagner, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

19. March 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Passenger pigeon mite

Species extinctions trigger chain reactions When animal or plant species go extinct, a chain reaction is set in motion. Often, at least one other organism dies out along with it. Thus, with the passenger pigeon, the passenger pigeon mite also went extinct in 1914. In a study published in 2004,

Kilch and deepwater char (one animal at bottom left) by Emil Walter from his book Our Freshwater Fish from 1913. (© Walter, Emil, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

10. March 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Lake Constance whitefish

Lake Constance whitefish inhabited the lake’s deep zones The freshwater fish Lake Constance whitefish was once native to the deep parts of Lake Constance. The olive-green or brown fish could reach a length of around 29 centimetres and weighed about 125 grams. Initially, the physician and naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin