In Stephen King’s popular novel “Cemeteries and Pets”, deceased pets were entitled to a second life — all that was needed was to bury them in an old Native American cemetery. In real life, everything is much more prosaic, and nature dispenses with magic rituals. Here are just six species of animals that biologists and zoologists have not seen for decades and naturally considered extinct, but they were subsequently discovered safe and sound .
| Why do animals die out at all Natural disasters. Hurricanes, floods, fires – any natural disasters cause enormous damage not only to the flora, but also to the fauna of our planet. Species disappear due to loss of habitat. Evolution. Some animal species disappear over time, but more often they simply transform or evolve into another species that is more adapted to a changing environment. Human activities. Hunting, manufacturing a variety of products (for example, clothes), massive deforestation – all this affects the decline in populations. However, environmental pollution (plastic, oil products, etc.) harms animals most of all.How irreversible is this processHumanity is working hard to bring many extinct species back to life. Scientists identify the four most effective methods of “resurrection” of animals.Since the experiment with the Dolly sheep, people have not abandoned the attempt to learn to clone animals . It looks like the process is simple: the DNA and / or the nucleus of the cell of an extinct animal is copied, and an artificially created embryo is inserted into the uterus of an individual living relative. Unfortunately, cloned individuals do not live long. The only successful experiment of this kind so far is the cloning of the Iberian rhinoceros, but the individual lived only a few minutes.The second method is already something on the brink of science fiction. Scientists believe that they will soon be able to edit the genome of relatives of an extinct species and in this way to revive it again. However, if DNA is difficult to collect, the tissue of the “resurrected” should not be too old and damaged, and the future carrier must be in captivity for the successful conduct of the experiment. However, even if all these measures are observed, the species will not “rise”, but will only have the features of a disappeared one.The following method provides more hope for the restoration of exterminated species. This is the so-called selective breeding , that is, the mating of close living relatives of an extinct animal. This method will help to recreate only the signs of extinct animals, but the genome of the species will be completely different.Be that as it may, and whatever methods of reviving animals a man invented, nature has long come up with everything for him. She “resurrects” species by iterative evolution . It happens like this: a particular animal disappears for a while, but the species has a common ancestor or a related subspecies with slightly different characteristics, and it is preserved, and after some time the previously extinct inhabitant of the Earth again evolves from it. |
Dwarf whale
Who said whales should be giants? In 2012, a dwarf whale jumped ashore in New Zealand, which at that time was considered extinct for about two million years. The animal is the smallest and rarest representative of baleen whales.
Unfortunately, people meet dwarf whales very rarely, since it is difficult to spot them in the sea: whales of this species release too small fountains, and jump out of the water for only a few seconds. Therefore, the lifestyle of the mustachioed is practically not studied.
It is known that ¼ the length of the body of a dwarf whale is occupied by a weighty head, and the total length of the animal is very small compared to its larger counterparts – only 4.0–6.4 meters. An adult weighs an average of 3.0-3.5 tons. The dwarf whale lives mainly in the seas of the Southern Hemisphere: most often it can be found near the shores of South Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand.
The main feature of this species is a curved nose. Because of it, the muzzle of a whale always looks as if gloomy and somewhat dissatisfied, but in fact such an “expression” only means that dwarf whales are related to the family of bowhead whales.
Lizard Phoboscincus bocourti
If you were playing hide and seek with a lizard of the Phoboscincus bocourti species from the skink family, you would definitely lose. She successfully hid from humans for almost a century and a half: from the 1870s to 2003. The animal was considered to have long disappeared, but it turned out that the reptile was hiding on the small island of Pen in New Caledonia. When meeting with the skink in 2003, scientists photographed it from all sides and recorded the habits, after which it was safely released into the wild.
The lizard is large enough – it reaches as much as 50 centimeters in length. It is the third largest predatory reptile on the island after extinct monitor lizards and land crocodiles.
Usually skinks are omnivores, but this particular species is a true gourmet: smaller reptiles, as well as chicks and eggs, predominate in the diet of Phoboscincus bocourti . Skink hunts most often at night.
Thanks to its sharp and curved teeth, Phoboscincus bocourti is a dangerous predator.
Alas, since tourists began to come to New Caledonia, it is becoming increasingly difficult to survive a skink. Its natural habitat is declining, and now the reptile is really on the verge of extinction and is listed in the International Red Book.
Haitian Crusher
Solenodon paradoxus is a truly paradoxical mammal. In 2009, it was rediscovered in Haiti. Shchelezub reminds a mixture of a shrew and anteater: it has an elongated nose and a small body. The animal was called “paradoxical” because it does not have immunity to its own poison: when the crawfish fight, they die even from minor bites.
This small mammal saw the dinosaurs themselves, but humans last met him in the late 1950s. At about the same time, another crabfish was discovered – the Cuban (Solenodon cubanus) . Since then, until recently, an animal was considered extinct simply because no one saw it. Now, the toothfish are found in both Cuba and Haiti, they live mainly in forests.
Unfortunately, the population of scabies is very small – the animals are constantly threatened with extinction due to slow breeding, threats from predators and the destruction of their habitual habitat. The scaly tooth from Haiti is listed in the Red Book.
Arakan Forest Turtle
For almost a century, it was possible to see the Arakan forest turtle only with the help of a time machine – the last time it was seen in 1908, and after this species was considered to have disappeared from the face of our planet … So far, in 1994, a pair of such turtles were found on the Chinese market.
1878 illustration
Since then, numerous expeditions have gone to neighboring Myanmar, where the two individuals were allegedly discovered: scientists searched for animals in the wild – to no avail. And in May 2009, a team of researchers from the Society for the Conservation of Nature discovered a population of turtles in the Myanmar Rakhine Yoma Elephant Range nature reserve , which is mainly inhabited by elephants.
Many trials fell to the lot of turtles: they were exterminated, eaten, and even mined alive and sold to collectors – as a rarity.
Due to the fact that Arakan forest turtles mate only once a year, and it takes a hundred days to hatch one cub, the species spreads slowly and the population is extremely small.
Bermuda typhoon
This bird lives in a mystical place – in Bermuda, where, according to legend, ships and planes disappear. However, there is nothing supernatural in the loss of the typhoon hunter: by 1621, the species was considered almost destroyed by the hunters who arrived on the islands. Colonial sailors actively shot birds, as a result of which the population of typhoons decreased several times.
The birds were rediscovered in 1951 on the rocky island of Castle, in the northeast of the archipelago. Scientists discovered typhoon nests and even helped them in reproduction: they supplemented the nests with wooden partitions and concrete burrows.
Now the population is slowly recovering. A whole island, Nonsach, was equipped for birds. Biologists and ecologists are working to increase the population of Bermuda typhoons, in particular, they help the chicks survive until they become adults.
South arabian leopard
South Arab leopards are real “cats that walk on their own”: from the 1930s, the species was considered extinct, and only in the 2000s leopards began to appear periodically in public. Graceful animals live in remote mountainous areas, mainly in Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
South Arabian is the smallest leopard species, almost a kitten compared to relatives: the body length of an adult reaches 1.4 meters and its weight is 30 kilograms.
Since the South Arab leopard lives in arid mountainous regions, it is far from easy for him to find water and prey. Therefore, in food the predator is unpretentious and preys on gazelles, mountain goats, hares, birds, lizards and even insects.
Zoologists believe that no more than one hundred South Arabian leopards have survived on the Arabian Peninsula. For a long time, the life of these cats has been threatened with extinction – the species is included in the International Red Book.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, reptile-database.reptarium.cz
