7 Animals That Are No Longer Extinct (Checked in 2024)

Where Does the Information About These Several Animals Come From?

In this blog, animals from “The Book of Lists” were once already discussed. At that time, they were the oldest living species. This time, the continuation of the book, “The Book of Lists 2” [1] will offer food for new thought. It contains a list of seven animals that were once considered not even critically endangered but already beyond the extinction.

However, they were rediscovered live and became thought as endangered species in the 1980. How did the last 44 years go for the listed species?

So, the List of the No Longer Disappeared Animal Species

1. Cahow belongs to the Procellariidae family. It was believed that these birds had not existed since 1615, as they were eaten by starving British colonists on the Bermuda Islands. This continued until January 8, 1951, when the bird was rediscovered by David Wingate, Bermuda's officer working on conserving imperiled species. Since then, the bird population has been slowly recovering, and this growth was also a result of the growth of the protected areas.
2. Dibbler was listed as extinct in 1884. The species returned to life in 1967 when an Australian naturalist tried to catch a pair of live honey possums but caught a couple of these instead. Today, dibbler is among the endangered animals.
3. Dwarf lemur has been considered extinct since 1875. In 1966, one was found near the town of Mananara in Madagascar. Today, there are known to be ten subspecies of these lemurs.
4. It was long believed that the extinction of the mountain pygmy possum happened 20,000 years ago. However, in 1966, one was found by Dr. Kenneth Shortman in the kitchen of his skiing lodge, Mount Hothan, in Southeast Australia. So far, year 1966 leads in terms of returning missing species into threatened species!
5. Tarpan, a subspecies of wild horse, was extinct both at the time of “The Book of Lists 2” release and now. How did it make to this list then? In the early 20th century, the tarpan was recreated by brothers Lutz and Heinz Heck, curators of the Berlin and Munich zoos, respectively. They crossbred horses of various breeds until they produced one that closely resembled the tarpan. The horses bred in this way exist today. Such unusual phenotype-based conservation efforts.
6. Aurochs, an ancient wild bull, once were very spread. Intense agricultural activities and hunting led to species decline and extinction in 1627. Its story is similar to that of the tarpan, but with one interesting detail: “Aurochs: How Hitler and Goering resurrected extinct species to make 'Nazi super cows'”. Attempts to 'resurrect' the Tarpan were also part of this program. It is difficult to say whether the Aurochs can be considered non-extinct now. Creating an indistinguishable from the Aurochs animal failed, and some projects dedicated to this still exist today.
7. White-winged guan, a South American bird that feeds on flowers, was considered extinct for a century until it was seen in September 1977. An American ornithologist and his Peruvian associate located four of the pheasant-sized birds in remote northwestern Peru. These birds still exist in the endangered status today, with about 200 individuals, and the population is stable. The white-winged guan inhabits a very specialized landscape, small, forested ravines and nearby slopes on the west side of the Andes. So it seems like there are not that many potentially suitable habitats.

Summary

Now it's not the list of disappeared species, now it's the endangered species list.

It's surprising, of course, that what was fragile 44 years ago still exists today. Perhaps this is because the return of species to life creates a certain excitement and concentrates people's efforts on trying to preserve it.

There are also laws in different countries supporting wildlife preservation. E.g., in the United States there is the Endangered Species Act, which is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In Australia, where the mountain pygmy possums live, the federal protection is done by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

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List of Links

[1] Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky, Amy Wallace, Sylvia Wallace, “The Book of Lists 2”, ISBN 0-241-10433-5