Liste ausgestorbener Tiere seit dem 15. Jahrhundert
A colonial victim of hunting tourism Shortly after the Indonesian island of Bali came under Dutch colonial rule in 1908, the first photographs were taken showing white men in linen suits with pith helmets, half-naked islanders and killed Bali tiger. The Hungarian Baron Oszkar Vojnich is said to have killed
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The first victim of human-caused climate change The Bramble Cay melomys or mosaic-tailed rat is considered the first mammal species to be declared extinct primarily or exclusively because of anthropogenic climate change. It lived on the Torres Strait island of Bramble Cay, one of the most narrowly limited habitats imaginable.
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When males and females look like two different species The particularly pronounced sexual dimorphism between female and male huia caused confusion in the past. It even went so far that the English ornithologist John Gould in 1836 described male and female huia as different species. Even today, scientists debate how
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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
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How did the Falkland Islands wolf reach the Falkland Islands? As early as 1690, British visitors to the Falkland Islands wondered about the only land mammal living there among all the small creatures. There were not even mice there. What did this wolf feed on? The British naturalist Charles Darwin,
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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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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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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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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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Its size was due to island gigantism A living Galápagos giant rat was never sighted or collected. Jochen Niethammer described the mouse-like rodent from the group of New World rats and mice in 1964 on the basis of three bone fragments found in a cave on Santa Cruz. Later, further
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