Top 10 Extinct Animals (2022)

Top 10 Extinct Animals: Natural events like climate warmth or cooling or changes in sea levels may be the cause of animal extinction. But in more recent eras, human activity has been the culprit.

The primary causes of contemporary extinctions, along with pollution, the introduction of foreign species, and overfishing or overhunting, are habitat destruction as farming land is expanded and forests are cleared. But it’s becoming more widely believed that extinctions are being caused by climate change.

On the basis of the estimate that between 200 and 2,000 species become extinct each year, between 0.01 and 0.1% of all species will become extinct annually.

however, U.N. experts recently discovered that According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, up to 150 species could go extinct every day. This may amount to 10% of species every ten years.

According to a recent estimate by scientists, there are about 8.7 million species on Earth. One to two million of those species is thought to be animal species. However, we have probably only covered roughly a fifth of everything there is in the time that humans have been discovering and documenting new species.

The following list includes 10 amazing extinct animals. Continue reading to learn what happened.

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Top 10 Extinct Animals

1. Plesiosaur

Without the mysterious plesiosaur, a huge aquatic reptile that roamed in the world’s waters throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, the list of the top 10 extinct animals would not be complete.

Plesiosaurs come in a variety of kinds, but the ones with the longest necks and smallest heads are the most well-known. The majority of these animals were astoundingly big, occasionally growing to an enormous 65 feet in length.

The Loch Ness Monster, a fabled creature that some claim resides in the waters of Scotland’s Loch Ness, is a subject of intense belief among many individuals. In fact, some people think that the Loch Ness Monster’s existence is proof of a plesiosaur that is still alive today.

Plesiosaurs, however, are thought to have vanished around the end of the Cretaceous Period, some 65 million years ago, according to the fossil record. And despite the fact that both groups existed and perished at the same time, they were not dinosaurs, despite what the general public thinks.

2. Woolly Mammoth-1650 B.C

Another extinct animal in the world is The woolly mammoth, this enormous, hairy creature with long ivory tusks curling out from its gigantic trunk-like nose, must be the creature best associated with the Ice Age.

Several mammoth species, including the woolly mammoth, the oldest of which were likely tiny, aquatic mammals that lived in North Africa until around three million years ago.

One of the lesser mammoth species, the woolly mammoth, made its way across the Bering Land Bridge to North America sometime in the late Pleistocene, and its offspring subsequently distributed throughout Eurasia.

Unfortunately, this mysterious monster did not last very long in the New World. Around ten thousand years ago, towards the end of the previous ice age, the last of the woolly mammoths perished.

3. Saber-toothed Cat-8,000 BC

On the list of top 10 extinct animals, the Saber-toothed Cat went into extinction in the year 8,000 BC. They were around between 55 million and 11,700 years ago and were frequently dubbed Sabre-toothed Tigers or Sabre-toothed Lions.

The carnivorous Sabre-tooth Cats got their name from their long, blade-like canine teeth, which may reach 50 cm in certain species. They had a very bear-like build and were regarded as superb hunters, taking down prey like sloths and mammoths.

These cats had jaws that could expand at an angle of 120 degrees, which is almost twice as wide as a lion of today! It is thought that the decline and extinction of the large herbivores that the saber-tooth cat hunted may have contributed to their extinction. Competition with humans and climate change are two further factors.

4. The Dodo-1662

The Dodo, an extinct bird without wings that lived in Mauritius, stood around one meter tall and might have weighed 10–18 kg. The Dodo’s exact appearance is still a mystery because the only documentation we know of it comes from a variety of 17th-century written and illustrated tales.

It is assumed that the bird lost its ability to fly as a result of the abundance of food supplies (seeds, roots, and falling fruits) and the absence of many predators.

The dodo was originally mentioned by Dutch mariners in 1598. By sailors, their domesticated animals, and exotic species, the bird was hunted to extinction. The last confirmed sighting of a dodo occurred in 1662.

5. Stellers Sea Cow-1768

Stellers Sea Cow is another Top 10 Extinct Animals in the world. The sizable herbivorous animal that was named for George Steller, a naturalist who found it in 1741. Inhabitants of the Near Islands, southwest of Alaska, and the Commander Islands in the Bering Sea are thought to have been Stellers Sea Cows, which reached heights of at least 8 to 9 meters and weights of 8 to 10 tons.

It is thought that the mammal was domesticated and spent much of its time eating kelp; this, together with the possibility that its large body was incapable of submerging, may have made it vulnerable to human hunters. The Steller’s Sea Cow was hunted to extinction just 27 years after Europeans first discovered it.

6. Great Auk-1844

An enormous bird without wings that can be found in the North Atlantic and as far south as Northern Spain. It stood 75 to 85 cm tall on average and weighed around 5 kg. The Great Auk had a strong swimming ability, which enabled it to engage in underwater food hunting.

On the island of Eldey, there was a final colony of Auks, but by 1835, all of them had perished. Three men caught the last of these birds in St Kilda, Scotland, in 1844, and killed it.

They slaughtered the auk because they thought it was a witch who was responsible for the storm when a significant storm surge occurred.

7. Top 10 Extinct Animals-Quagga-1883

The quagga is a mammal that is linked to contemporary zebras and horses. It actually has stripes only on its head and neck, which vanish as they get closer to the animal’s brownish hindquarters, giving it the appearance of a mix between a horse and a zebra.

Before it was hunted to extinction in the 1870s, the quagga was a native of South Africa’s desert regions. Throughout the 1880s, all animals kept as pets perished in Europe.

The quagga is an extinct animal with a few claims to renown. First off, it was the first animal whose DNA was examined, revealing that the quagga was actually a subspecies of the plains zebra rather than a separate species.

The Project, which is suitably titled, has also undertaken an extensive breeding program for the quagga, the fruit of which was a foal born in 2005. The “re-created” quagga appears to closely resemble the extinct quagga, but DNA testing has not yet confirmed whether this animal is real.

8. Passenger Pigeon-1914

The passenger pigeon is ranking eight among the Top 10 Extinct Animals. A bird with flocks so large that it would take days for them to travel overhead and darken the sky as they passed, astounded the initial settlers in the New World.

Any farmer who had the misfortune to feed passenger pigeons would find his whole crop destroyed in a matter of seconds. Then, practically overnight, the most common bird in North America vanished from the face of the earth.

An illustration of how nature and man are in direct confrontation is the disappearance of the passenger pigeon. When the first Europeans arrived in America, it had an astonishing 3 to 5 billion people living it.

The New World, however, did not have enough room for both species. Due to ruthless hunting, deforestation, and other aspects of humanity’s ever-expanding range, passenger pigeons were soon exterminated. By 1914, the last known bird had already passed away, with the extinction only becoming apparent at the beginning of the 20th century.

9. Tasmanian Tiger-1936

The enormous carnivorous marsupial known as the Tasmanian Tiger was indigenous to Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea.

The animal, which was unrelated to tigers and looked like a medium- to large-sized dog, was 30 kilograms in weight and over 2 meters long from nose to tail, but it had dark stripes that gave it the appearance of a tiger.

It is thought to have been hunted to extinction, and bounty-based hunting was encouraged. However, sickness, dog introductions, and human encroachment on its habitat are all possible causes as well.

Between 1910 and 1920, the last wild Tasmanian Tiger was slain, while the final captivity one passed away in 1936 at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.

10. Baiji Dolphin-2006

The last on the list of the Top 10 Extinct Animals is the White Baiji Dolphin.

Only the Yangtze River in China is home to the Baiji White Dolphin, often known as the Chinese River Dolphin. These creatures could reach a length of eight feet and a weight of one-fourth of a ton.

Due to their tiny eyes and extremely weak eyesight, they had to rely on echolocation to travel and search for prey. After spending 20 million years in the Yangtze, their population rapidly decreased starting in the 1950s.

The river’s use for hydroelectricity, transportation, and fishing as China’s industrialization progressed had a significant impact on mammals. No one has spotted a Yangtze River Dolphin since 2006, however, they are not officially considered extinct.

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Summary

Top 10 Extinct Animals

1. Plesiosaur
2. Woolly Mammoth-1650 B.C
3. Saber-toothed Cat-8,000 BC
4. The Dodo-1662
5. Stellers Sea Cow-1768
6. Great Auk-1844
7. Quagga-1883
8. Passenger Pigeon-1914
9. Tasmanian Tiger-1936
10. Baiji Dolphin-2006