EXTINCT ANIMALS This page intentionally left blank EXTINCT ANIMALS An Encyclopedia of Species That Have Disappeared during Human History Ross Piper Illustrations by Renata Cunha and Phil Miller GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Piper, Ross. Extinct animals : an encyclopedia of species that have disappeared during human history / Ross Piper ; illustrations by Renata Cunha and Phil Miller. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–313–34987–4 (alk. paper) 1. Extinct animals—Encyclopedias. I. Title. QL83.P57 2009 591.6803—dc22 2008050409 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2009 by Ross Piper All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008050409 ISBN: 978–0–313–34987–4 First published in 2009 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America Th e paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 We live in a zoologically impoverished world, from which all the hugest, and fi ercest, and strangest forms have recently disappeared. —Alfred Russel Wallace (1876) This page intentionally left blank To my Mum, Gloria This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Preface xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction xvii 1 Fewer Th an 100 Years Ago 1 Golden Toad 1 Gastric-Brooding Frog 3 Eskimo Curlew 6 Caribbean Monk Seal 8 Th y l a c i n e 11 Carolina Parakeet 13 Passenger Pigeon 16 2 Fewer Th an 200 Years Ago 21 Rocky Mountain Locust 21 Pig-Footed Bandicoot 23 Quelili 26 Stephens Island Wren 28 Tarpan 31 Quagga 33 Warrah 36 Great Auk 38 3 Fewer Th an 500 Years Ago 43 Elephant Bird 43 Steller’s Sea Cow 45 Dodo 48 Aurochs 50 x CONTENTS Moa 52 Haast’s Eagle 55 Marcano’s Solenodon 58 4 Fewer Th an 10,000 Years Ago 63 Moa-Nalo 63 Du 65 Horned Turtle 68 Giant Lemur 71 Woolly Mammoth 73 Sivathere 76 Giant Deer 79 Giant Ground Sloth 81 Cuban Giant Owl 83 5 10,000–12,500 Years Ago 89 Glyptodont 89 Saber Tooth Cat 91 Scimitar Cat 94 American Mastodon 97 Giant Beaver 99 American Cheetah 101 American Lion 104 Woolly Rhinoceros 106 Litoptern 108 Dire Wolf 111 Cave Bear 113 Sicilian Dwarf Elephant 116 Merriam’s Teratorn 119 6 More Th an 12,500 Years Ago 125 Giant Short-Faced Bear 125 Flores Human 127 Giant Bison 131 Homo erectus 134 Neanderthal 137 Marsupial Lion 139 Diprotodon 142 Australian Th underbird 145 Giant Monitor Lizard 148 Quinkana 150 Giant Short-Faced Kangaroo 153 Giant Echidna 156 Wonambi 158 7 More Th an 50,000 Years Ago 163 Giant Rhinoceros 163 Megatooth Shark 165 Magnifi cent Teratorn 168 Pouch-Knife 171 CONTENTS xi Terror Bird 174 Giant Hyena 176 Giant Ape 179 Giant Camel 181 Glossary 185 Selected Bibliography 191 Selected Museums in the United States, Canada, and Worldwide 193 Index 197 This page intentionally left blank PREFACE Countless books have been written about the dinosaurs, the reptiles that ruled the earth for about 160 million years, yet remarkably few books have been written about the many strange, fi erce, and enormous beasts that have disappeared in the time humans and our recent ancestors have been around. Th e earth is certainly a poorer place for their passing, but it’s fascinating to think that our forebears knew these animals—even worshipped them and hunted them. Extinct Animals is an exploration of these creatures, from the giant, fl esh- eating birds and saber-toothed marsupials of South America to the golden toad of Costa Rica, which became extinct as recently as 1989. A book on extinct animals would not be complete without a little about the process of extinction itself, and so in the introduction, you fi nd out about how the earth has been rocked by numerous mass extinction events. Th e last of these, the seventh extinction, is happening right now as a result of the unchecked growth of the human population and the habitat destruction that follows in the wake of what we call progress. Following the introduction are 65 vignettes, each of which present a diff erent extinct animal. You will not fi nd an exhaustive account of all the animals that have disappeared from our planet in the last couple of million years because such a book would be immense, and all that we know of many extinct animals is based on fragmentary fossils. Th e focus of this book is those extinct beasts for which there are historical accounts of the living animal, a detailed fossil record, or scant remnants that indicate a truly incredible creature. Th e a u d i e n c e f o rExtinct Animals is anyone with an interest in zoology, earth’s remarkable recent past, or the far-reaching consequences of an expanding human population. Th e main purpose of Extinct Animals is to present what we know about the lives of animals that have disappeared forever in a way that just about anyone can read and understand. Textbooks are full of fascinating information, but all too often, they are inaccessible to general audiences. Th is book provides a bridge to those resources for anyone who has even the slightest inter- est in the world around him and what it was once like. xiv PREFACE Along with the individual vignettes are a number of entries that describe some of the dis- coveries and concepts that are crucial to understanding how life on earth has changed in the last couple of million years. Th ese include the amazing bone deposits of Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles, the ice ages, and the human age of discovery, which has seen humans exploring every corner of the globe, often to the detriment of native fauna. Wherever possible, I have tried not to use jargon. Th ere is a whole dictionary of special- ized zoological and paleontological terms, which can sometimes be confusing or diffi cult to say. I have tried to write in more general terms without using this specialized language. However, there is a glossary at the end of the book to explain any jargon that was unavoid- able. For those readers keen to trawl the Web for extra information, the best way is to type the Latin name, or perhaps the common name, into a Web search engine. Th e amount of information on the Web today is such that there will be numerous pages on most of the ani- mals in this book, but only those sites ending in .gov or .edu are likely to carry information that has been thoroughly researched and edited. In this book, at the end of many entries, there is a list of resources for further reading. Th ese lists, as well as the selected bibliography at the end of the book, include textbooks and journal articles that can be found in any decent library. In addition to the Web and books, you can fi nd more about the animals featured in this book by visiting natural history museums. A list of some of the museums where you can see skeletons and reconstructions of many extinct animals can be found at the back of this book. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the following people who have helped me with this book by review- ing content and providing me with photographs: Robert McNeill Alexander, Herculano Alvarenga, Christine Argot, Jennifer Rae Atkins, Susana Bargo, John Clay Bruner, Per Christiansen, Russell L. Ciochon, Darin Croft, Matt Cupper, Chris Dickman, Judith Field, Claude Guérin, Michael D. Gottfried, Tim Halliday, Fritz Hertel, Don Hitchcock, Christine Janis, Paul Johnsgard, Paul Kitching, Rob Kruszynski, Tatiana Kuznetsova, David Laist, Roger Lederer, Adrian Lister, Jeff rey Lockwood, Marco Masseti, Raoul Mutter, Pancho Prevosti, Julian Pender Hume, Víctor Hugo Reynoso Rosales, Dave Rob- erts, Hans Rothauscher, John D. Scanlon, Elwyn L. Simons, Nikos Solounia, John D. Speth, Mary Stiner, Tony Stuart, Ian Tattersall, Eduardo Pedro Tonni, Cis van Vuure, Ashley Ward, Rod Wells, Richard S. Williams, Paul Willis, and Michael Wilson. Th e following institutions have also kindly provided me with photographs: the Natural History Museum at Tring, the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, the Texas Memorial Mu- seum, and the Australian Museum. Finally, I would like to say a big thanks to Renata Cunha and Phil Miller for the excellent illustrations you will see throughout this book. This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION Extinction is a fact of nature. All of the species of animal that live on earth will, at some point, become extinct. Some, through the process of evolution, may give rise to descendents—new forms to exploit diff erent niches—while others may disappear, leaving no line of descent. Ever since animals made their fi rst appearance in the story of life on earth, billions of species have disappeared. Some of these have fallen to some huge, cataclysmic events, of which there have been many in the last few hundred million years, while others have been outcompeted by other organisms or were unable to react to small changes in their environ- ment. In 1982, scientists proposed that in the last 500 million years—a window of time in which animals have evolved to exploit the vast majority of habitats on earth—there have been around six mass extinction events.