Favorite Extinct Animal
 

So I was reading up on extinct animals today- I really should have been working, but I got sidetracked after I discovered the Thylacine, a dog-like marsupial that was announced extinct in the 80s. They looked really great. This led me to investigate other extinct and interesting creatures.


Thylacine, Australia (most recently Tasmania)


Glyptodon (North America)


Woolly Rhinoceros, British Isles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals Do some reading on the hundreds of extinct animals documented here. Do you have a favorite?

our neanderthal cousins, of course

Trilobites.

That half Zebra half horse thing is cool

The Dodo of course, because its the celebrity of extinct animals. When something is going extinct we say, "Its going the way of the Dodo."

There are a lot to choose from.

Dodos were very silly, very naive. Apparently because they had never seen humans before, they did not fear them, so they just ran right up to them to see what they were. Before they knew it, they'd been eaten and eventually the whole species had been wiped out.

Fools.

Dinosaurs obviously. Can't be specific about which one though...

Diprotodon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diprotodon

Aurochs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs

and one of the only animals to ever to have the date of their demise recorded
Passenger Pigeon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Pigeon

Now that's a horn.

Also the giant sloth.

not extinct, but threatening extinction:



the iberian lynx.

they say this is probably the next felidae to be extinct(the last one was the smilodon)... in a very short term.




smilodon

Dinosaurs!!!!!!!!!

That's the one! Brilliant creatures!

easily.

Daycare Nation!

The Archaeopteryx, for two main reasons - one being its importance in the history of paleontology/phylogenetics/etc..., as well as being an absolutely killer word in scrabble, which comes highly recommended.

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker:





But it may not be extinct! There have been sightings in Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, and so on recently. I read a book about this by the dudes at the Cornell Lab of Ornothology. I've seen stuffed ones - it's a beautiful bird. There's a video of a sighting from 2004:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vo.../1114103S1.mov

I don't know, you've got to be an incredible birder to tell what that is.

!@#$%! you neanderthal.