Africa - Page 3 of 3 - Artensterben

Neu entdeckte Tiere 2023: Krokodilsmolch Tylototriton ngoclinhensis

The species name ngoclinhensis refers to the type locality of the newly discovered Ngoc Linh crocodile newt (Tylototriton ngoclinhensis): Ngoc Linh Mountain in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. (© Phung TM, Pham CT, Nguyen TQ, Ninh HT, Nguyen HQ, Bernardes M, Le ST, Ziegler T, Nguyen TT (2023) Southbound – the southernmost record of Tylototriton (Amphibia, Caudata, Salamandridae) from the Central Highlands of Vietnam represents a new species. ZooKeys 1168: 193-218.)

9. November 2023 Doreen Fräßdorf

Newly discovered animals 2023

It is said that between 11,000 and 58,000 animal and plant species irreversibly go extinct each year, but there is also good news: around 18,000 new species are described and named by taxonomists each year; this number includes extinct or fossilized organisms, as well as bacteria and viruses. Even in

The back of the scarab beetle E. giganteus was completely black, red-brown at the sides, with yellow hairs and brownish mouthparts, feet and antennae. (© Rossini M, Vaz-de-Mello FZ, Montreuil O, Porch N, Tarasov S (2021) <a href="https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1061.70130" target="blank"Extinct before discovered? Epactoides giganteus sp. nov. (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Scarabaeinae), the first native dung beetle to Réunion island. ZooKeys 1061: 75-86.)

1. July 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Epactoides giganteus (scarab beetle)

First extinct, then discovered: the scarab beetle Epactoides giganteus In 1817, the French botanist Nicolas Bréon found himself on Réunion, part of the Mascarene island group, which he would not leave again until 1833 due to health problems. During his time there he was director of the botanical garden Jardin

A Barbary lion in Algeria, photographed by Sir Alfred Edward Pease in 1893. The particularly dense, dark mane was striking, but this provides little information about the species; rather, it may represent an adaptation to climatic conditions. (© Alfred Edward Pease (29 June 1857 – 27 April 1939), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

12. June 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Barbary lion

The cultural significance of North Africa’s lions Lions already played a role in early Egyptian art and literature. Archaeologists, for example, found statues and statuettes of lions from Egypt’s Early Dynastic Period (3100 to 2686 BC) in Hierakonpolis, the religious and political centre of Upper Egypt, and in the former

The head-body length of the bubal hartebeest was 150 to 244 centimeters. Its shoulder height ranged between 109 and 150 centimeters. (© Goldfuss, Georg August; Schreber, Johann Christian Daniel; Wagner, Andreas Johann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

10. June 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Bubal hartebeest

The bubal and ancient civilizations The German zoologist Alfred Brehm writes in the 1911 edition of his world-famous zoological reference work Brehms Tierleben: “Of the various species, the one known the longest is the bubal hartebeest, frequently depicted on Egyptian monuments Bubalis buselaphus.” And indeed: the bubal must once have

Illustration of the Cape Verde giant skink by J. Terrier from 1885. Males could reach a body length of around 50 centimeters, females just under 43 centimeters (including tail). The animals weighed almost half a kilo. (© J. Terrier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

21. June 2021 Doreen Fräßdorf

Cape Verde Giant Skink

Ilhas Desertas—the terra typica of the Cape Verde giant skink Organisms that occur in isolated ecosystems such as islands are often adapted to the extreme conditions prevailing there. They exhibit characteristics such as dwarfism or gigantism and often lack defensive mechanisms due to the absence of predators, setting them apart

An illustration of the bluebuck, created between October 1777 and March 1786. Image: Robert Jacob Gordon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

14. May 2021 Doreen Fräßdorf

Bluebuck

Rarer in museums than previously thought “Also running on the high mountains are many kinds of wild bucks and goats, such as gemsbok, blue bucks, pied bucks, roe bucks, klipspringers, ibexes, wild bucks,” it says in Johann Schreyer’s Neue Ost-Indianische Reisz-Beschreibung from 1681. This is the first time that “blue

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

Female Madeiran large white from the book The Butterflies and Moths of Teneriffe (1894) by A. E. and Rashleigh Holt White. (© A. E. Holt White, Rashleigh Holt White, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

20. July 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Madeiran Large White

Did a virus or a parasite drive it to extinction? The Madeiran large white was declared the first butterfly to have gone extinct in Europe due to human interference with nature, according to Lewis Smith in a 2007 article in the British Times. Exactly why the Madeiran large white went

St.-Helena-Riesenohrwurm ( Jamestown Museum)

Specimen of a Saint Helena giant earwig in the Jamestown Museum on the island of St Helena. (© Roger S. Key, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

14. March 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Saint Helena Giant Earwig

The largest earwig in the world At 8.4 centimeters in length, the Saint Helena giant earwig was once the largest earwig in the world. Its body was about five centimeters long, its forceps 3.4 centimeters. For comparison: most other earwig species are one to two centimeters long. As its name

Drawing of the red gazelle from the 1899 book Great and Small Game of Africa. (© Rowland Ward, Limited. [d. 1912], Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

1. March 2018 Doreen Fräßdorf

Red gazelle

The last animal died in 1894 The Red gazelle is known only from the skins and bones of three male specimens, which are currently housed in museums in Paris and London. The last known individual of this species was likely killed by a hunter in 1894, as there have been