![]() Native to New Caledonia, an island group in the South Pacific, crested geckos ( Correlophus ciliatis) were first described by a French zoologist in 1866 and not seen in the wild for decades thereafter. This charming, tawny lizard appears to have a crescent of eyelashes around its lidless eyes. Scientists rediscovered a single specimen in January 2019 but noted that the species remains at risk from deforestation and insect collectors.Ĭrested Gecko: Extinct From 1866 to 1994 Credit: jamcgraw/ iStock ![]() It turns out that the bee just excels at hiding - it lives in termite burrows in dense rainforests on a handful of Indonesian islands. Entomologists feared it had gone extinct due to rampant deforestation in its native habitat. Despite its obvious charisma, Wallace’s Giant Bee, named after English entomologist Alfred Russel Wallace, hadn’t been spotted in the wild since 1981. The world’s largest bee ( Megachile pluto) has a body the size of your thumb and a 2.5-inch wingspan. Wallace’s Giant Bee: Extinct From 1981 to 2019 To increase the population’s genetic diversity, which is key to its survival, the San Diego Zoo and its partners cloned the first black-footed ferret, named Elizabeth Ann, in December 2020. ![]() Wildlife officials collected the ferrets for captive breeding programs, which include about 280 animals today, and between 200 and 300 ferrets have been reintroduced to the wild. But two years later, a dog named Shep discovered a black-footed ferret population near a Wyoming ranch. Scientists believed they were extinct by 1979. Once abundant across North America’s Great Plains, the black-footed ferret ( Mustela nigripes) suffered from the loss of its grassland habitat to agriculture and decreasing populations of prairie dogs, its main prey. Black-Footed Ferret: Extinct From 1979 to 1981 Credit: Kerry Hargrove/ Shutterstock ![]() At least 124 breeding pairs nested on Nonsuch and nearby islands in 2018, a sign that the cahow is coming back from the brink. Wingate launched a cahow conservation and ecological restoration program in 1963 on Nonsuch Island, which continues today. In 1951, 15-year-old David Wingate and two museum ornithologists were thrilled to rediscover eight nesting pairs on several nearby tiny islands. By 1620, invasive pigs and rats had rendered the cahow extinct - or so scientists thought. Thousands of these small, gray-and-white seabirds ( Pterodroma cahow) nested on Bermuda’s beaches when English settlers arrived in 1609. Cahow or Bermuda Petrel: Extinct From 1620 to 1951 Credit: Nature Photographers Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo In a 2021 study, scientists looked at growth rings in coelacanth scales and estimated they can live up to 100 years. Coelacanths have anatomy unlike any other animal - for example, a unique intracranial joint allows them to turn their heads upward while feeding. Smith, who identified it as a coelacanth ( Latimeria chalumnae), a type of bony fish thought to have gone extinct with the dinosaurs about 65 million years earlier. She shared it with prominent ichthyologist J.L.B. ![]() Coelacanth: Extinct From the Late Cretaceous to 1938Ī South African fisherman caught a mystery fish in 1938 and brought the specimen to Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, the director of the local museum. Scientists call them “Lazarus species,” after the biblical figure who died and came back to life. Biologists have declared many rare and endangered species extinct after failing to locate any living specimens in the wild for a long time - only to rediscover them decades or even centuries later. Sometimes, extinction doesn’t last forever. ![]()
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