Recently Extinct Animals: 20 Species Lost Since 1800

What counts as a recent extinction?

Scientists often use 1500 as the start of “modern” extinctions, because written records begin to document species reliably from then. This list starts in 1800 and leaves out earlier losses such as the dodo, last reliably seen in the 1660s. A species is listed as Extinct by the IUCN only when there is no reasonable doubt that the last individual has died, so official declarations often lag the last sighting by decades. Subspecies are marked as such.

Recently extinct animals at a glance

1. Great auk (1844)

The great auk was a flightless seabird of the North Atlantic, about 75–85 cm (30–33 in) tall, and the original bird called a “penguin”. Sailors killed it in huge numbers for meat, oil and feathers, and collectors paid well for the last skins and eggs. The last confirmed pair was killed on Eldey, off Iceland, on 3 June 1844; a possible sighting off Newfoundland in 1852 was never confirmed.

2. Labrador duck (1875–1878)

This black-and-white sea duck bred in Labrador and northern Quebec and wintered off New England and New Jersey. The last specimen was shot on Long Island, New York, in 1875, and the last reported sighting came from Elmira, New York, in 1878. Why it vanished is still debated: hunting, egg collecting and the loss of the shellfish it ate may all have played a part.

3. Quagga (1883)

The quagga was a South African subspecies of the plains zebra, with brown and white stripes mainly on the front of its body and a plain brown rear. Settlers hunted it for meat and hides and to clear grazing land for livestock, and it was gone from the wild by about 1878. The last one died at Amsterdam’s Artis zoo on 12 August 1883.

4. Rocky Mountain locust (1902)

In 1875 a swarm of this grasshopper over the American Great Plains was estimated at 12.5 trillion insects, the largest concentration of animals ever recorded. Less than 30 years later it was gone; the last live specimens were collected in Manitoba, Canada, in 1902. Scientists think plowing and irrigating the river valleys where it laid its eggs destroyed its breeding grounds.

5. Huia (1907)

The huia of New Zealand’s North Island was famous for its beaks: the male’s was short and stout, the female’s long, thin and curved. Its black tail feathers were prized, first by Māori chiefs and then by European collectors and fashion. Forest clearing and introduced predators finished it; the last confirmed sighting was on 28 December 1907.

6. Passenger pigeon (1914)

Once the most abundant bird in North America, with an estimated 3–5 billion birds, the passenger pigeon flew in flocks that took hours to pass. Market hunters shot and netted them by the million for cheap meat, while forests that fed them were cleared. The last wild birds were shot around 1900, and Martha, the last of her species, died at the Cincinnati Zoo on 1 September 1914.

7. Carolina parakeet (1918)

The only parrot native to the eastern United States had a green body and a yellow and orange head. Forest clearing, shooting by farmers and the feather trade reduced it to scattered flocks, and the last confirmed wild birds were seen in 1910. The last known captive bird, a male named Incas, died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918, and the species was declared extinct in 1939.

8. Heath hen (1932)

The heath hen was an eastern subspecies of the greater prairie chicken, once common from New England to Virginia. Hunting and habitat loss confined it to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where fires, predators and disease took their toll. The last bird, nicknamed Booming Ben, was seen on 11 March 1932.

9. Thylacine (1936)

The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, was the largest meat-eating marsupial of modern times. Between 1888 and 1909 the Tasmanian government paid more than 2,200 bounties for thylacines, which farmers blamed for killing sheep. The last known individual died at Hobart Zoo on 7 September 1936, the date now marked as Australia’s National Threatened Species Day.

10. Caribbean monk seal (1952)

The only seal native to the Caribbean was hunted for its oil for centuries, and overfishing reduced its prey. The last confirmed sighting was at Serranilla Bank, between Jamaica and Nicaragua, in 1952. The United States declared the species extinct in 2008 after a five-year search.

11. Japanese sea lion (1974)

This sea lion bred on rocky islands in the Sea of Japan. Commercial hunting for oil and skins in the early 1900s cut the last known colony to 50–60 animals in the 1950s. The last confirmed record is a juvenile caught off Rebun Island, Hokkaido, in 1974.

12. Golden toad (1989)

Males of this toad were a brilliant orange, and hundreds once gathered to breed in pools in Costa Rica’s Monteverde cloud forest. About 1,500 adults were seen breeding in 1987; in 1988 only a handful appeared, and a single male seen on 15 May 1989 was the last. The likely causes are chytrid fungus, a disease that has killed amphibians worldwide, and unusually dry weather. The IUCN listed it as extinct in 2004.

13. Slender-billed curlew (1995)

This long-billed wading bird bred in the bogs of western Siberia and wintered around the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The last indisputable sighting was in Morocco in February 1995. After decades of fruitless searches, a 2024 study declared it extinct, often described as the first known bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia.

14. Pyrenean ibex (2000)

The bucardo, a subspecies of Spanish ibex, lived in the Pyrenees mountains. Hunting reduced it to a single female, Celia, found dead on 6 January 2000. Scientists cloned her from frozen cells, and on 30 July 2003 a cloned kid was born, but it died minutes later from a lung defect, making the bucardo the first animal to go extinct twice.

15. Chinese paddlefish (2003)

One of the largest freshwater fish, the Chinese paddlefish of the Yangtze River had a long, sword-like snout; the last known specimen, caught in 2003, measured 3.63 m (11.9 ft). Dams such as the Gezhouba, completed in 1981, blocked its route to spawning grounds, and overfishing did the rest. It was formally declared extinct in 2022.

16. Po’ouli (2004)

This small brown honeycreeper was discovered on Maui, Hawaii, only in 1973. Habitat loss, introduced rats and cats, mosquito-borne avian malaria and the decline of the native snails it ate drove it to just three known birds by the late 1990s. The last one, a male captured for a breeding attempt, died on 26 November 2004, and the species was declared extinct in 2019.

17. Western black rhinoceros (2006)

This subspecies of the black rhino once ranged across the savannas of West and Central Africa. Poaching for its horn reduced it to a few animals in northern Cameroon, and surveys from 2006 onward found none. The IUCN declared it extinct in 2011.

18. Bramble Cay melomys (2009)

A small brown rodent, the Bramble Cay melomys lived only on a tiny sand island in the Torres Strait, between Australia and New Guinea. Rising seas and storm surges repeatedly flooded the island and destroyed its plants. It was last seen in 2009 and declared extinct by the Australian government in 2019, often called the first mammal extinction caused by human-driven climate change.

19. Christmas Island pipistrelle (2009)

This tiny insect-eating bat lived only on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, where it was common until the 1980s. Its population then collapsed, probably because of introduced species. A rescue plan was approved in 2009, but the last bat was detected on 26 August 2009 and never caught.

20. Pinta Island tortoise (2012)

Whalers and sealers took thousands of Galápagos tortoises for meat, and goats later stripped Pinta Island of plants. A single male, Lonesome George, was found in 1971, and attempts to breed him with related tortoises failed. He died on 24 June 2012. Tortoises with partial Pinta ancestry have since been found on Isabela Island, a hopeful twist covered in our Galápagos giant tortoise profile.

Possibly extinct: the next names on the list

Several animals are probably gone but not yet declared extinct. The baiji, a river dolphin of the Yangtze, has not been confirmed since a 2006 survey found none, and is listed as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct). The ivory-billed woodpecker of the southern United States has had no universally accepted sighting since 1944; read is the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct? for the evidence.

What these extinctions teach us

Most of these losses share a pattern: animals on islands or in small ranges, hit by hunting, habitat loss and species brought in by people. Some were once abundant, proof that large numbers are no guarantee of survival. Other species, from the kakapo to the California condor, were pulled back from the brink in time; see rarest animals in the world.