![]() They represent a broad range of bird families, and their extinctions happened in time periods stretching from the Renaissance to just a few decades ago.Īlthough you'll never add any of these birds to your life list, we hope they'll serve as a reminder of what we've lost, and as motivation to continue to support critical conservation efforts for the endangered birds still with us. The list below introduces you to some of the most famous birds to have gone extinct around the world. This suggests a future of declining biodiversity that favors widespread, generalist species.Ī species' disappearance can have rippling ecological, cultural, and even economic effects, and as we enter what many experts consider our planet's sixth mass extinction, we should all be alarmed about what the future may hold.īut the news isn't all bad: In recent decades, spurred by the permanent loss of the species listed below and others, there have been successful conservation actions that have prevented other losses. Many of these occur within small, restricted ranges. Today, the birds most at risk of extinction tend to be those reliant upon specific, niche environmental conditions. These include: competition with and predation by introduced species, unsustainable hunting and trapping by humans, habitat loss due to human activities such as agriculture and logging, and a combination of these factors. ![]() More than 180 bird species (out of around 10,000 total) have likely gone extinct over the last 500 years, and the rate of extinction is accelerating.īird species have disappeared for a number of reasons. Early representation of the Dodo, circa 1625. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading. ![]() Wikimedia Commons/Frederick William FrohawkĮven if this research doesn't yield expected results, it could help humans better understand the relationship between species and how creatures may be protected from threats including diseases.Īre you excited about the scope of bringing back extinct species? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below. These behaviours may or may not represent the characteristics of the original species before they went extinct.Īlso read: Harvard Doctor Playing God? Will Bring Dead Woolly Mammoth Back To Life In 6 Years How would the animal behave if brought back to life? It's unclear! When a lone resurrected member of any of these species is let loose in the wild, it would have to learn behaviours from scratch. Instead, these "proxies" will attempt to create the closest version of the extinct creature and as it existed in the past. It's imperative to note here that these species, if they return, will not be the exact replicas of their original species. 150 years after Europeans found the bird in 1507, it went extinct.ĪLICE AND THE DODO - 1865 by John Tenniel It evolved to become flightless due to the lack of predators on Mauritius. The dodo used to weigh about 22 kg (50 pounds) and sported a curved beak. The dodo actually went extinct because humans hunted it to death, same as the Tasmanian tiger, as reported by Gizmodo.Īlso read: De-Extinction: Scientists Say They'll Bring Back The Tasmanian Tiger In 10 Years The company has managed to sequence the genome of all three species - the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the Tasmanian tiger. The dodo, a flightless bird that was native to the island of Mauritius had gone extinct by 1681. Why do it at all, you wonder? Colossal claims that reintroducing these extinct species to their former habitats would help bring some sense of normalcy to those environments. The company received $150 million in new funding and currently has three targets - the woolly mammoth and the thylacine (also known as the Tasmanian tiger). What if we told you that the currently extinct dodo bird could roam the Earth again? Genetic engineering company Colossal Biosciences said on Tuesday that it will attempt to resurrect the extinct dodo bird as part of its "de-extinction" efforts.
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