About six hundred million years ago, the earth was full of algae plants, there was no animal life, a large number of cyanobacteria, under photosynthesis, produced oxygen, with the volatilization of oxygen, as the atmosphere spread to the world, the formation of a very protective ozone layer, when oxygen gradually seeped into the ocean, the first life forms appeared. In the hundreds of millions of years that followed, animal life began to flourish and flourish, and even after several major mass extinctions, it still stubbornly multiplied and formed a rich and colorful life form.
According to the laws of nature, animals and plants continue to experience the process of birth, evolution and eventual extinction, until the emergence of human beings, the first time by a living body to break the laws of nature, human beings have become the masters of the earth. Under human activity, the rate of extinction of land and sea creatures has been more than 1,000 times faster than that of natural states.
Many ancient creatures are no longer known to us, and since the invention of photographic technology in 1839, some wild animals have been recorded, including some animals that are now extinct, who are no longer there but have left the last image. Let's see who they are!
At the Bronx Zoo in New York, there is a special area called the Extinct Animal Cemetery, where some extinct animals are inscribed on stone tablets for people to hang.
1. Thylacine.
thylacine
The thylacine, also known as the Tasnian tiger, shows on local stone tablets that the last time the thylacine was found was 1933, which was actually wrong, the last wild thylacine was shot by the local rancher in 1930, and the last captive thylacine, due to the negligence of the keepers, was exposed to the hot sun and died in 1936.
The thylacine is the largest marsupial predator in modern times and, like kangaroos, has a unique pouch. Once widely distributed in Australia and New Guinea, about 7,000 years ago, because Asian immigrants carried the past domestic dogs abandoned in Australia, and eventually evolved into the Australian wild dog, the ancestor of the Australian wild dog is the Asian gray wolf, which completely occupies and suppresses the ecological niche of the thylacine, squeezing the living space of the thylacine, and in the following thousands of years, the thylacine activity area gradually shrinks, and finally only tasnian island survives. However, after European immigrants landed in Australia, the thylacine was hunted in less than a hundred years.
Equus quagga quagga.
Spotted donkey
The spotted donkey became extinct in 1883, and the last spotted donkey was a female spotted donkey raised at the Amsterdam Zoo in the Netherlands, which was able to reach the Netherlands after a huge journey that less than ten percent of the donkeys survived.
Spotted Donkey Equus quagga quagga
The spotted donkey is an extinct animal in South Africa, with a front body like a zebra and a back half like a donkey. But the spotted donkey is not a separate species, they are a kind of zebra, genetically indistinguishable, but because of their strange appearance, they have been hunted a lot, some of them are shot, and some of them are transported to zoos around Europe. In fact, the donkey is docile, and the locals used to domesticate the donkey as a means of transport.
3. Passenger pigeons.
Passenger pigeons
Passenger pigeons, once a very large number of wild pigeons throughout the United States, migrated in groups, a large group of passenger pigeons can even reach millions, each migration time of up to a week. But one of the biggest flaws of the passenger pigeons is blind obedience, when the leading passenger pigeon takes the lead and flies into the trap, the other passenger pigeons will follow, so it is easy to catch.
When the Europeans occupied the Americas, they discovered this cheap meat that they had captured, and a large number of passenger pigeons were hunted and killed, transported by rail to various cities, and became the most common food on the tables of the poor, and the excess was used to make dog food or feed. The number of passenger pigeons plummeted due to heavy human hunting, and the last passenger died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914, ironically, when a local law to protect passenger pigeons was passed in 1916.
4. Carolina parakeet.
Carolina parrot
The Carolina parakeet, the only native parrot in the eastern United States, is extinct in 1918 in many literature records, but according to eyewitness records, the last wild Carolina parrot was discovered in 1930.
The Carolina parrot is an omnivorous bird that feeds mainly on poisonous insects such as moths, but after being developed by farmers in the eastern United States, local farmers feared that the Carolina parrot would eat grain, so they shot the Carolina parrot in large numbers. Another important reason why the Carolina long-tailed parrot was extinct was its penchant for living in groups, and when one parrot was shot, other parrots would gather around the dead parrot, which accelerated their extinction.
V. The Falkland Wolf.
Falkland Wolf
The Falkland wolf, the only mammal on the Antarctic continent and the only extinct animal among canids, the Falkland wolf looks like a fox, but is a kind of wolf, but its temperament is quite docile, especially easy to believe humans, and the local hunter can kill a Falkland wolf with a meat bone in one hand and a stick in the other.
In the past, the locals and the Falkland wolf could still live in harmony, but when the European colonists arrived, the excellent port and the rich grassland were developed into fishing ports and pastures, and a large number of sheep were raised, and in order to prevent the Falkland wolf from hunting livestock, they began to hunt wolves in large quantities. Sadly, shortly after the wolf was hunted and exterminated, the local prairie rats were infested, causing the grassland to deteriorate and eventually becoming barren, and the locals had to embark on the road to Europe to work for a living.
6. Dodo.
The dodo, the national bird of Mauritius, is now everywhere in Mauritius can be seen in the image of the dodo, in fact, due to the lack of cultural and written heritage, the locals have never really understood the transitional dodo, the existing dodo image is still painted by a European painter. Under his brush, the dodo is a bird that cannot fly, is not good at running, and has a stupid and cute image, because the dodo he draws is an overly obese dodo that is artificially raised, restricted to the active area and fed.
The real dodo is a kind of pigeon, fat, but not fat, although it can not fly, but it runs quickly. When europeans arrived in Mauritius, the pigs, dogs, cats and other pets they brought with them wandered around the island, eventually destroying the dodo's unconcealed nest on the ground, resulting in the fact that the dodo could not breed and became extinct.
7. The Great Auk.
Great auk
The great auk looks very much like a penguin, but in fact the name penguin first belonged to the great auk, and it was not taken away by the newly discovered penguin until after the great auk became extinct. The great auk is large and lives along the coastline, with tens of thousands of individuals per group, and is extremely easy to catch due to its slow movement. So when europe's early expedition fleets passed by, it became their supply depot, the great auk became their food, and within a few decades, the great auk was eaten.
The last great auk was discovered in 1852, when several hunters found a couple of great auks who had crushed the big auk's last eggs while snatching them.
Bufo periglenes.
Golden Toad Bufo periglenes
The golden toad, a golden toad living in a narrow tropical rainforest in the cloudy forest of Gamento verdot in Costa Rica, has a bright skin color that warns predators that they are highly poisonous animals, but this skin can deter predators, but cannot escape changes in the natural environment.
Due to climate change, acid rain has been falling for several consecutive years, and the extremely sensitive golden toad eventually became extinct.
IX. Geochelone nigra abingdoni, pinta island tortoise.
Pinta Island tortoise Geochelone nigra abingdoni.
By the time the Pinta Island tortoise was first spotted in 1971, it was the last one left. It was housed in the Darwin Research Station and named Lone george. Attempts were made to allow it to breed offspring with other species of tortoises, but ultimately failed, and in 2012, its death also declared the pinta island tortoise extinct, the cause of the extinction of overgrazed goats destroying the living environment of the pinta island tortoise.
Ten. White-tipped dolphin Lipotes vexillifer.
The number of freshwater cetaceans endemic to China's Yangtze River Basin has gradually decreased since the 1980s, and in 2007, after more than a month of searching, nothing was found. On August 8 of that year, a report was published in the journal Royal Society Biological Letterhead, officially announcing the functional extinction of the white-tipped dolphin. Other animals with the same fate as it are:
White-tipped dolphin Lipotes vexillifer
11. Seaside Grey Sparrow.
The Coastal Grey Finch is an endemic bird that lives in Florida, USA, and its extinction is silent, and by the time people excavated, their number has dropped from the initial 6,000 to 0.
The reason for their extinction is that their habitat was built as a space launch base and sprayed with a large amount of pesticides. The last seaside grey finch was made into specimens and displayed in the museum.
These wild animals have disappeared from people's vision forever, human prejudice and greed have driven them to extinction, and the road to protecting wild animals is long and long, requiring everyone's efforts.