#exctinct animals

[apuff]

the most serious apex predator

[the-dragon-girl-27]

Flocking drawings!

Crassigyrinus surfacing for air showing off its weird ass teeth

two female Kelenken nuzzling under a rainbow

Diplocaulus catching its prey

one of the last Rodrigues Solitaire crying out trying to find a companion to no response

[merlyn-bane]

publicly kissing @meebles on the forehead for being extremely lovely about the inevitable byproduct of cowriting a dinosaur cowboy au with someone for whom dinosaurs are a special interest

[filurig]

some domesticated Beasts in pareidolia... moar info below

fatfin perch:

the fatfin perch is derived from perca fluviatilis perch, and has been bred to be both larger, fatter and more docile in order to make herding, breeding and keeping them easier for sjörå. sjörå usually section off a section of a lake they inhabit and keep their perch there in order to keep them safe from other predators. and also with the help of their guard pikes...

guard pike:

derived from the northern pike, the guard pike is unmistakeable. selectively bred to be intelligent and loyal, these pikes are kept by sjörå as guarding/herding animals. every sjörå collective usually keeps a fair amount of these pikes in order to ensure the safety of their perch population.

tomteget:

a goat breed which has been bred by tomtar, its a very large animal for a goat and is used by gnomes as mounts and livestock. very robust and several other breeds derived from this one exist which have been adapted for different purposes (such as milk, meat, etc.). its possible that the idea of a "christmas goat" may stem from the tomtar's tendency to travel with these goats.

gloson:

a domesticated version of a relative of the wild boar, the gloson is both huge and striking in its appearence, fitting for the trolls. their wild equivalent is essentially exctinct and its current population are entirely kept by trolls at this point. used mostly as a guarding animal, but sometimes as livestock - it depends on the region (northern trolls tend to use them as the former, southern as the latter). humans have wrongfully interpreted their mane as "sharp" and able to be used to slice the gloson's target, but this is a misconception - while the gloson has quills, they aren't what is used for this manner of attack. instead, the trolls tend to provide them with sharp back armour if they choose to utilize their gloson for battle.

[gabipaleo]

Steller's sea cow - a recently extinct giant sirenian, related to modern dugongs and manatees. They went extinct in XVIII century, but their exctinction wasn't just because of europeans, we know that the last populations near Kamchatka were already on the brink of exctinction.

These huge animals could reach 9 metres in length and weight 10 tonnes, making them the largest aquatic non-cetacean mammal we know. They were algae eaters, feeding on kelp. Unlike modern sirenians, they didn't have teeth and used two keratin plates in their mouths for chewing. After feeding, according to Steller they'd lie on their backs and nap. Steller also observed an interesting mutualistic behaviour between sea cows and gulls (probably slaty-backed gulls), as these birds would eat parasites from the sea cow's back, like oxpeckers and rhinos.

The slaty-backed gull is one of the seabirds native to areas where sea cows used to live, and while we can't be sure which species of seabird fed on parasites of these large mammals, the opportunistic nature of seagulls makes them good contenders for the spot.

Despite their appearance, sea cows weren't stupid animals, they lived in large herds, looked after their young and were probably monogamous. Steller observed that they kept their calves in the middle of the herd or near the shore. This could have been caused by their predators.

Killer whales, specifically Bigg's killer whales, which are known to hunt other mammals, are the most likely predators of Steller's sea cow, apart from humans. While they might have trouble killing a large cow, especially in a herd, a small calf might be a meal worth the risk.

[life-winners-liveblog]

An artifact of the extinction?

Let me quote TMA itself with the canon description of The Exctinction:

"But now the fear is not of a rapture or a revelation. It is of catastrophic change. Mankind will warp the world so much it kills us all, and leaves only a thousand years of plastic behind. Technology will strip us of what it means to be human, and leave us something alien and cold. We will press a button that in a moment will destroy everything we have ever been. Animals are witnessing the end of their entire species within a single generation."

[eddieintheocean]

The Deep by Alex Rodgers - marine biology book review

rating - 10/10

chapters - 10

page count - 368

genre - nonfiction

content warnings - global warming, mentions of animal death

This book talks about the authors experience as a marine biologist, from exploration in the artic and hydrothermal vents to in the court room and meetings discussing the climate situation of the ocean.

it features many facts and interesting creatures (many of which i have tabbed for me to make a post about later) and also information about species that have come back from the brink of exctinction.

it can get quite depressing towards the last few chapters, although it is scattered with hopeful stories. The last chapter also features ways that the world and the government can help the oceans and also how the reader can make an impact on a smaller scale

i would really recommend this book if you are looking for a way into marine biology, or have been interested for a while. there is a glossary at the back for those more scientific words that arent in most peoples vocabulary.

[dreaminggoblin-yells]

Hi, happy WBW! 🦖 - What creature makes the people in your world strikes fear into everyone? Is it large, ancient, small and lethal, hopefully exctinct but no one knows for sure? What would make someone hide in the outhouse to escape it?

For the big new project:

On land, that would be the wolverine, or perhaps an ill-tempered horse. The island has few truly dangerous animals. There are legends, of course.... But they're just legends, and no one in recent memory has actually seen a dragon or anything like that.

In the water, people tend to avoid the Wolfshark, so called because they hunt in packs and tend to follow fishing boats. They're not super big, but the biggest beasts around nonetheless, and they are not to be messed with.

[quaranmine]

tumblr book report time

okay, I finished Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams earlier today! I did say in the post a few hours ago I only had about 40 pages left. I also reread about another 80 or so pages that I read last year just to refresh my memory. So, I'm now going to do the (potentially) depressing task of listing out the endangered species features in this book, and seeing if any are still alive. I don't know yet how depressing or exciting this post might be.

Madagascar

This part of the book is from a trip in 1985, where they went to try and find the aye-aye lemur. I am pleased to report that the aye-aye is still alive, although still endangered. Woo-hoo! The aye-aye is the world's largest nocturnal primate, and is so unique it has no taxomic family (no related species.) They are considered evil, or harbingers of death, in folk belief, so they face danger from being hunted and killed.

Indonesia

In this chapter, they travel to the island of Komodo to look at the Komodo dragons. Komodo dragons, thankfully, are still alive, but still endangered due to the fragility of their habitat. They're at risk of volcanoes, earthquakes, habitat loss, fire, tourism, loss of prey from poaching, and illegal poachnig in general. Climate chane and sea level rise also threaten their habitat. There are 1,380 mature individuals left in the wild and 3,400 total.

Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaïre at the time of the book's publishing)

In this chapter, they end up seeing two animals. They traveled to the country to see the northern white rhinocerous, but also ended up seeing mountain gorillas too because, as Adams says, "It is very hard to go all the way to Zaïre and not see them." Mountain gorillas, although listed as endangered, are still around. The World Wildlife Fund lists their population as just over 1,000 individuals. The specific area that Adams and Carwardine visit in the book, Virunga National Park, has seen an increase in population. When they visited in the late 80s, there was a population of 320, but as of 2010 there were 480.

Here's where my post actually gets sad. The animal that Adams and Carwardine actually planned to visit in the DRC was the northern white rhinocerous. In 1988 at the time of the trip (or perhaps 1990 at the publishing of the book), there were 22 individuals left in the wild, all in Garamba National Park. Twenty two. Douglas Adams writes about the sad state of their population, and compares it to the success of the subspecies the southern white rhino. He ends that section of the book with the sentence: "The point is, we are not too late to save the northern white rhinocerous from exctinction."

Feeling very energized after reading this, I had set down my book and pulled out my smartphone to google the northern white rhinocerous. The bad news is, the northern white rhino is functionally extinct in 2023. There are only two left in the entire world, and both are female, mother and daughter. Garamba National Park has suffered years of turmoil from politcal unrest, wars, insurgents, and poachers. In 2008, there were no northern white rhinos left in the wild and only 8 left in captivity.

There's some tentatively good news. Before the last male died in 2018, his sperm was collected. The remaining two living females cannot carry babies anymore, but the daughter's eggs were gathered. There's a team of scientists trying IVF, and since 2019 they've managed to get 24 embryos from one female and two males. They're planning on using another southern white rhino as a surrogate. Will this save the species? Who knows. Any babies that result will have to be inbred--either siblings or half-siblings. No genetic diversity remains in the subspecies. But it is interesting to me since this sort of thing used to not be possible at all for endangered species.

New Zealand

The first birds mentioned in this chapter is the Kea, which is also endangered, but this chapter isn't really about them. It's about the Kakapo. The Kakapo are probably my favorite animal described in this book, because they seem so silly. It's a wonder they never managed to go extinct at any point in history. I love them. Fortunately, there's good news for Kakapo: they're doing better!

Actually, I saw a tweet about them literally earlier today:

They're still considered critically endangered, but this is good news. As of 2023 there are 248, which is a significant increase in the ~70 that existed when the book was written. Yay, kākāpō! They're very cute.

China

Here is where the post gets sad again. In this chapter, Adams and Carwardine visit the Yangtze in search of the baiji river dolphin. It has been 21 years since the last confirmed sighting of the baiji, and 17 years since they were considered extinct after no trace of them could be found. I find this particularly sad, because part of the chapter in this book has Adams and Carwardine visiting with the Tongling Baiji Conservation Committee, and their construction of a nature reserve on the river. The end of the chapter seems hopeful based on this hard work, so I also feel quite sad for all these people in 1989 who cared so much and were still unable to save these animals :(

Mauritius

This is the final chapter of the book, and covers quite a few animals. The original intention was for them to be looking for the Rodrigues fruit bat. These bats are endangered, but with increasing population. By the time of the book's publishing in 1990, the population had just passed the 1,000 mark. The Philadelphia Zoo website says with breeding programs, there are now 20,000 left in the wild.

Another species mentioned is the Mauritius Kestrel. In 1974, there were only 4 individuals left. Now, thanks to breeding programs, there are about 400 left in the wild as of 10 years ago. That's amazing, but it is a bit worrying still--in 2005, there were 800 in the wild. So there was a wildly successful reintroduction and now the population is dipping again. But if they survived it once, I think we can help them survive it again.

Another bird mentioned is the pink pigeon. As of the publishing of the book in 1990, there were less than 10 in the wild. Now, thanks to conservation efforts, there are approximately 480. They've suffered some loss of genetic diversity, though.

Finally, the echo parakeet is mentioned. As of the time of the book's publishing, there were less than 15 remaining in the wild. I am happy to say that as of 2020 there are more than 800 birds left in the wild, and their status has been moved from endangered to just vulnerable--a step up!

That brings me to the end of my tumblr book report. I was actually mildly surprised and happy to see that only two of the species mentioned in the book are extinct/functionally extinct, and that the others were saved from the brink. I seriously thought while googling some of the birds at the end that they would be gone, but fortunately they're still around.

Goodnight! I spent way too long writing this!

[queenpinesofdomino]

OK so I have this stupid headcanon about how the mythosaur is still alive. Disclaimer this is a crack idea for my entertainment there is no way that happened.

So heres the thing we all know that Korkie is (allegedly) Satines son yes? And that (allegedly) his dad is a very well know Jedi yes? Yes. Now I know that the force is not inherited from parents to kids but let's say here that Korkie is force sensitive to some degree. And since we know that Obi Wan is very good with animals and creatures (this is a force ability but I don't know the name of it) let's say that Korkie has that as well.

Now here's the headcanon.

One day when Korkie was skipping class (cuz you can't tell me that he hasn't done it. As much of an ass kisser clone wars made him to be, he was a very rich, teenage boy living alone. So let's be real for a sec)

So he was skipping class, wandering the streets of Sundari and while he was minding his business he suddenly felt something "calling him" from the mines. Now being the little curious kid that he was he started following the weird feeling. And after walking, in there, for a good hour he came to a stop in front of an egg half buried in the ground so he took it back to the Academy.

Now as I said he has a weird connection to animals and he is kinda dumb and curious so he hatched the egg and came face to face with a small baby lizard.

Now keep in mind that mythosaurs were exctincted for thousands of years so he basically was going by vibes alone. And so eventually he figured out that:

a. the little lizard was semi aquatic

b. Ate mostly greens and bugs and could go without food for weeks

c. Went to hibernation if not fed

d. Didn't like the light and

e. Had a little force sensitive itself so they could somehow communicate

So long story short after some years of the lizard growing and growing he couldn't keep it any more at his dorm and he decided to take it back at the Palace.

And thats how the lil mythasaur ended in a glass bowl filed with tap water inside his closet where it lived for good 2 years.

Until one day around 18bby where he had to take it out of the bowl and into the refresher so he could help its lil foot with the dead skin that couldn't come off. But as we all know the force works in mysterious ways and Satine called him for some very important reason (to pick up his mess from the living room) and he left the lizard unattended in the bathroom where she walked in.

And then after a very long hour of Korkie trying to stop his aunt from blasting a weird lizard with her deactivator, while screaming at him for bringing it home, Korkie agreed to take the lizard back where he originally found it a.k.a deep into the mines.

And thats how a mythasaur ended up being alive on Mandalor.

[panurei-derogatory]

We have less than a century before the human race goes completely exctinct.

Someday soon, the bombs will drop, or the floods will come, or some other manmade extinction will rear its head, and the Earth will be purged of the rot that calls her their home.

In a few million years, the scars will heal, and non-sentient life will have evolved to refill its ecological niches, and everything will have gone back to normal. How it was meant to be.

Where I lie in bed will one day just be nature. Animals without the brain to understand the world around them. No more war, no more horrors, no more suffering.

And it will be beautiful.

And it will stay that way.

Mother Nature will never again make the mistake of giving her creations sentience.

[siriuslystargazing]

for the ask game 🦖💛

🦖 favourite exctinct animal? Irish elks!! It was one of the largest deers to exist and I bet they were majestic as hell. Love me some elegant creatures

💛 any piercings ? Yeah I got my ears DOUBLE pierced so I can wear cute earrings. I don’t want anymore because getting my ears done again for like the 3rd time made me pass out. I don’t do good with certain kinds of pain 😂

[e17omm]

I’ve always thought people calling Hi3 depression impact were biased by a first impression but isn’t PGR going a bit too far in the other direction?

It might be, but it certainly sells its hopeless situation.

Humanity is facing extinction against the Punishing Virus, which evolves MUCH faster than humans can. In months, or fuck, maybe weeks, it has gone from corrupting electronics and human brains, to mindless animals, and now it knows pack instincts, seiges, and human speech.

PGR is not a happy story. It is a struggle. Babylonia up in space cant save everyone, humans still on Earth are suffering day to day. They have to scavenge to survive and every death now just feeds the Punishing Virus' Red Tide. They face a future where tomorrow is a hope, and for many they rather tomorrow not come at all. Earth faces an entire, whats even the word? Ecological change? The Punishing Virus is slowly taking over the Earth. The Red Tide can make biological beings entirely out of Punishing Virus. Animals, PLANTS, liquid, humans. Humanity is facing a desperate struggle against exctinction through replacement.

And the game sells it.

We aren't just told these things. We are shown just how bad it is. We go into individuals, humans trying to live another day on Earth, and we see directly just how bad it is.

It is "show dont tell" to a T right now.

[theblogofruth]

"The Settlement Day." From the Book of Ruth 3: 16-18.

Now we have to talk about a most egregious word, "man." Betwixt the many animals named by the Torah, some of which we like, some we do not, and the angels is something called a man.

According to the Torah, a man is achieved in between the Sixth and the Seventh Days, not before. Just because a boy gets his pits and a dangler does not mean he has become a man, it just means he has grown.

Men are accomplished only after the Sixth Day, as stated, after one crosses the Jordan. Then, one reads about manhood in the Book of Joshua which explains how the Torah concludes.

The Book of Ruth is the companion guide which explains life to girls who want to abandon flirtations with boys and find real men in order to commence the final flightpath to womanhood, a topic that is not often discussed as a Torah until now.

Ruth begins as a young(ish) woman who has lost her husband and returns to her mother-in-law's house in order to stage a relaunch. Dead husbands represent a number of things: the end of a war, the end of an era, encroaching opportunity and also encroaching trouble. They are the crossroads between a person or society that realizes only an highly moral, ethical, and spiritual approach will secure happiness in the future.

Ruth's mentor, Boaz, suggests she find a younger man who like Ruth just can't wait but for a different battery of reasons. Women like Ruth in the Torah are the vehicles of the future; they represent an evidence based approach to Shabbos "happiness efforts." Buddhists think of Karma as a dubious thing, but Judaism treats Shabbos as a process of lacking any kind of suspicion at all. It is Ruth's new official duty then to teach an unseasoned future generation how to do it right.

Except so far she hasn't quite got it right because she is still sowing some wild oats. She is performing a Moabite, a habitual way of life whether or not it works for her. She is on the cusp of Shabbos but she is also very far away. This is man's story too- just when we think it's going to be all right, an election year fucks everything up, or a terrorist attack happens, or what-do-you-know, we've underestimated climate change or the Russians or the Chinese...

All of this, much of which has resulted in bloodshed was unnecessary but we did it anyway. Now we have to figure out what to do, and it can't include the same circumstances as before or Karma not Shabbos will result. The Rab, the narrator, the Most High posing as Boaz says to Ruth and to us, "do not go back empty handed", also "mankind is waiting, so hurry."

What is it waiting for? Six ways to measure reality:

16 When Ruth came to her mother-in-law, Naomi asked, “How did it go, my daughter?”

Then she told her everything Boaz had done for her 17 and added, “He gave me these six measures of barley, saying, ‘Don’t go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’”

18 Then Naomi said, “Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.”

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 16: How did it go? The Number is 5082, ה‎אֶפֶסחב, well, it is supposed to have gone a certain way; a Passover, then an Ephesus.

Reality is not supposed to govern us, we are supposed to govern it. This means when there is trouble, you kill it and then you get over it, you work past it, then you start over.

Humanity has chosen to define itself as instrument of chaos and mayhem and this is not cutting it.

Where is the vision that is going to rescue us from our dead husband, currently known as the Age of Agony, an era where man finds a way to turn his back on scoundrels, holocausts, mass exctinctions, and the liars and losers who are responsible?

It had better materialize soon. There are too many excuses, bureaucrats and buttheads in the way of the future while the law books smolder, eager to brand their next victims with the stamp of the law on their hides.

v. 17: She told her everything. The overarching She is the macrocosm, it is the natural reality and it is speaking volumes about the consequences of allowing the Mormons, Republicans and Russians to live long and prosper. They have chosen badly and by allowing them to survive on this planet alongside us so are we.

The Number is 8861, חחוא, chahua "let's go to the farm."

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and all the rest, honey, it's time to go to the farm so you can see just exaclty what it looks like when the animals aren't running the pet shop.

v. 18: Then Naomi said, “Wait, my daughter, until you find out what happens. For the man will not rest until the matter is settled today.”

We recently discussed something called a Therion or Complex Day. Settlement is an example of a very uncomplicated kind of day. The Complex Day suggests reality takes place on a rolling basis, everything is happening all at once. Babies are born, old people die, there is everything happening in between. Settlement day is when all of this stops and mankind as an entire culture moves forward, it accomplishes the Passover.

Imagine if Kamala Harris stopped fuchking around and said "I am officially announcing America is no longer going to a lawless place and I am arresting the SCOTUS Justices for illegally banning abortions, arresting Donald Trump for January 6, killing all the Mormons for what they did on October 7, we are going to start scrubbing the air of greenhouse gases so the temperature comes down and we are throwing everything we've got at the war in Ukraine and we are going to win and free its people from oppression...!"

That would cause a shift out of the blended day into a Day of Yah, one for which we cannot wait. As importantly, humankind would be able to refer to such decisiveness going forward and it would protect us from evil forever more.

The Number is 8443, Haddag, "the cutting edge of the Eg." The Eg is defined as "the war chariot that delivers the goat prophet from across the Jordan."

Eg is a Hebrew word that appears in the Bible to refer to a mountain range east of the Jordan Rift Valley, in Transjordan, and southeast of the Dead Sea. The range extends from Mount Nebo in the north, possibly to the Arabian desert in the south. 

Eglon (eg'-lon) is another Hebrew word that can have multiple meanings, including: 

Young bullock 

Calflike 

Round 

Rolling 

A threshing drag 

An oxcart 

A war chariot 

So it is the call of a slightly more experienced woman that leads a youngish man to her. Together they thresh away the hull of the past, create a princess bride and supposedly this leads to happily ever after.

As for why we cannot be men until these things come to pass- there are too many worthless people working on too many evil things for us to quite qualify as a mankind right now, and there are no signs this is going to change.

[ithisatanytime]

the first gorilla specimen wasnt obtained until about 1901

they lie like shit about what they dont know. let me ask you something, lets say mountain lions are going extinct in your state. how do they know? when they havent seen one in a while, thats how they "know"

literally

what i mean to say is, we know a lot about what we know, but we act like we know even more about the things we cant fucking know.

this isnt an antiscience stance this is about scientific literacy. the fossil record is SHIT, its SHIT, and thats if you believe its totally legitimate. how much of the earths species do you think we have a specimen from? even just a tooth or a bone fragment? if you answered anything anywhere near half of one percent you dont know what you are talking about. how would we even know? how would we know when we were done discovering fossils? that we were close to being finished? if fossils were incredibly common wed have a pretty good idea once we started finding nothing but duplicates for a good while but they are exceedingly rare. the odds that a member of a species will be fossilized are low, then the fossil has to remain relatively intact for millions of years, than you have to fucking FIND IT.

archeology is best understood not as a science but a sideshow, a rough trade like gold prospecting where you search for or fabricate your own oddities. history cannot be a hard science and in acedemia it isnt treated like one, because of the nature of studying history hard physical evidence just wont exist so you go PRIMARILY on witness accounts from contemporaries who lived back then and had the good sense to write shit down. archeology should remedy this right? so why dont we demand hard proof that ceasar existed and instead rely on circumstantial evidence like eye witness accounts and coins with his face stamped on them? because we fucking have to! archeology is cool and all, but the finds are exeedingly rare and the stuff in ancient history for which we have HARD archeological evidence for is the exception to the rule, an incredibly small minority of historical facts we take for granted have hard archeological evidence to back it up.

all that to say, biologists can tell you a lot about the animals we have been able to study, but it can tell you NOTHING about animals for which it lacks a specimen, and do not let them fool you, thats most animals who ever lived. for most species who lived and died we have found no trace of them and likely never will. the fossil record is a fucking joke, imagine a pokedex with the original 151 pokemon and everytime you encounter a new pokemon the sillouhette of say pikachu for instance gets colored in, our pokedex would have like 6 pokemon filled in maximum. what i mean to say is, certain species of HUGE carnivorous dinosaur are known from ONE TOOTH, thats the only evidence we have that one tooth we found if we never found it we wouldnt even know they existed, and thats much of the time in paleontology, so what i mean to say, is if i found a tooth belonging to a yet undescribed animal fossilized in the dirt, and i look around it in the dirt layer it was discovered and determin it was from 250 million years ago, can i then determin that it went extinct 250 million years ago as well? i mean this is the only tooth found so its gotta be the last one right? therefor it went extinct two hundred fifty million years ago! the problem should be obvious, what if they only went extinct a million years ago, and i just only found this one tooth! hell its lucky to even find the one after a million fucking years (lucky to the point you should be skeptical of the field in general to be honest) by finding fossilized remains of an animal all you can say for certain is that it existed, fossilized remains cant show you when an animal went exctinct, if the fossil record was more complete, and fossils less rare, than you could do stuff like that with some degree of certainty, if there were for instance hundreds of intact t-rex fossils (instead of only the ONE) and found 98 of them during one era but then only 2 in the beginning of the next era, you could with some degree of certainty say they went extinct around that time. but the T-Rex, the most sought after fossil specimen by far, and a LARGE and quite distinctive looking fossil, we have found one that is near perfectly intact (and even that IM HIGHLY skeptical of, motherfuckers look at the provinance of amateur bigfoot hunters like giga skeptics why were they filming, but an archeologist goes to a random fucking spot and digs up a whole t-rex skeleton and you are like well damn she had a degree, look up the provinance of sue) whether legitimate or not, the fact is there is only ONE near complete t-rex fossil, and weve been looking a long time. remember we found out gorillas were a thing just 100 years ago, and in all that time leading up to then we found not a single fossil, it was thought to be a cryptid, and then bam heres a head i cut off from a living member of the species.

the point is the fossil record couldnt even predict the existance of LIVING megafuana, gorillas, komodo dragons, giant squid, these are large and highly charismatic animals, and they are STILL AROUND to this fucking day, how are they gonna presume to tell you based on fossils when an animal went extinct?