Blogging Challenge Day 7: Rediscovery?

I'm going to end with not a species, but cloning.
No, it's not a Jurassic Park fantasy. And it has been done. Scientists recently cloned an extinct frog, but while none of the embryos actually survived, they were created, so it is possible. Another extinct animal- the bucardo, a mountain goat- was also cloned, and survived longer: ten minutes after the surrogate mother gave birth to it, it died from a lump in its body. But some are skeptical of its moral and ethical implications. Are we 'playing God' too much? I dunno. Personally, I think cloning species that WE have destroyed is a great idea. I'm not in favor of cloning dinos though. But the thing is, if we clone species, where will they go? Most of their habitat has been destroyed. They would just be zoological oddities- forever. Or would they? Scientists are also currently trying to resurrect the wooly mammoth, which would graze over the Siberian tundra and return this barren isolated place to its former ecological glory. We might find new medicines from old plants. There are advantages, but what about the moral and ethical consequences?
Wow, this is deep. What do you think? Please comment, especially if you want me to do another challenge!

Blogging Challenge Day 6: The Sad Tale of the Quagga

People thought this was the quagga. Go figure.

This animal was, at least in looks, quite hilarious to look at. With a zebra head and a horse body, some may say it looks like one of those games when you mix and match body parts. This appeal was also evident to zoos in Europe, and it was found in huge herds in the African Karoo and parts of the former Orange Free State. What extinguished this quirky creature?
(You know, if anyone's thinking of doing a guest post, this would be a GREAT animal pseudonym.)

Observe the head: that of a zebras? Move down, and it's a horse.

Hunting, competition with European colonizers for grass. Food. Leather. And also the fact that no one was really sure what a quagga was.
Yes, that's right. The quagga died because no one knew what it was.
You see, the quagga really isn't a separate species, but merely a genetic variation of the plains zebra. This genetic mutation was passed on and that's why it looks so individual, but really it IS a plains zebra, just with a different coat. That's a key factor in its extinction, believe it or not. The term 'quagga' was basically used to apply to any plains zebra, and when the last quagga died, no one really realized it was the last of its kind. Because no one knew what it was. A quagga could have been any zebra, so there were no last-ditch conservation efforts. It was only years after anyone actually looked around and said, "Hey, remember that weirdly-colored zebra? Where's that gone?" That's when they realized they had driven it to extinction, unwittingly. Then they accorded it the honor of being the first extinct animal whose DNA was analyzed, and they realized, that while it wasn't a separate species from the plains zebra, it was pretty darn close, and that now it was gone.
Tomorrow's the last day of the blogging challenge!
Comment if you think you'd like to use the quagga as a pseudonym for a guest post.

Blogging Challenge Day 4: Solar Eclipse

I really am flooding you with posts, ain't I.
Don't worry, come Monday, this endless barrage of posts and reminders of how many species we have destroyed will cease. If you don't post five comments from at least two different people, that is.
Anyway, I'm going to talk about a species that regularly caused solar eclipses. Just flocks reached up into the millions, blocking the sun totally from sight. They represented up to 40% of the bird population of North America, with numbers sometimes estimated at 6 billion. If you live in Singapore, you'll know how common mynahs are. Just multiply that commonness by about a 1000. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.
The passenger pigeon seemed destined for survival, and survival in almost annoying numbers, to probably pest levels. Twas not to be. Some enterprising hunter somewhere shot one down and ate it in the 1800s. That was its killing. It always been used for food, but somehow this flavorful revelation was greater than all those before. It was discovered to have great culinary flavor and instantly people all over the US were demanding it and hunters were more than happy to comply. It was a pigeon killing spree. Since they flocked, and nested, in such large numbers, it was easy for hunters to come in and just kill, kill, kill them. Break their eggs, strangle the babies, shoot the adults. Vicious. It was easy to lay huge nets and watch as a huge flock flew into it, entangling it, and trapping it, and instant fodder for the city markets. No one noticed when numbers started decreasing in the mid 1800s. No one noticed as the huge flocks covering the sun slowly decreased. No one noticed but a couple of government officials and conservationists who passed a bill forbidding the netting of passenger pigeons within 2 miles of nesting areas. Was that bill obeyed? You take a guess.
No one noticed at all till there was only a couple of lone passenger pigeons left, scattered in zoos. Then people tried to get them to breed, but passenger pigeons rely on their huge flock numbers for breeding.
People noticed when the last passenger pigeon named Martha died in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden on the 1st of September, 1914. People noticed. But it was too late. It was far too late.

The Glasswing Butterfly

Blogging Challenge Day 3: The Stephen Island Wren

This post I am doing to highlight the danger of introducing foreign species anywhere. I'm quite aware that my last one was way, way, way, way, way too long, and that many of you despaired of reading it. Ah well. I'll try to keep this one short.
The Stephen Island Wren. It used to be only one of three flightless songbirds in the world. Once a widespread inhabitant of New Zealand, the arrival of the Maori drove it to only one small population on an isolated island: you guessed it, Stephen Island. This was the fault of another introduced species, the Polynesian riat, or kiore. Using the IUCN Red List rating, it would probably already have been Critically Endangered by then. It did have one thing in its favor, though: Stephen Island was totally isolated. Until the lighthouse came. Boats kept passing by, and they needed some way to guide them. So they built a lighthouse on Stephen Island in 1894, and some people came to live there as lighthouse keeper. Innocent enough, except the problem is, they brought Tibbles.

Tibbles can go down in history as the cat that vanquished a species. If Tibbles could talk to us now, what she would probably say was: "Veni, Vidi, Vici." (I came, I saw, I conquered) And conquer she did. Pregnant when she came to the island, allowed to roam wild, a single year after she arrived the Stephen Island wren was extinct, and there was quite a healthy colony (but not healthy for other species) of feral cats, all descendents of the great Tibbles, thriving on the island.
It was 1925 before they managed to exterminate all the cats from the island.
Can you see the dangers of foreign species? If one day, you ever venture to an alien place: just one warning. Don't bring your cat. Or your rat. Or your dog. Or your hog. Or your lice. Or your mice. Cause then you just might exterminate a race. Like Tibbles did.

Blogging Challenge Day 2: A Farewall 'Auk' to the Great Auk

Penguins in the UK? Nah, most people would say. Yet there were penguins there, till about 200 years ago. The Great Auk.
A flightless bird with no natural fear of humans, who was very picky in where they lived (only rocky islands, please, somewhere in the northern hemisphere, must be isolated, must have a plentiful food supply, oh and must not be near polar bears) some might say that this bird was not destined to survive. It's been around for ages: there's evidence of them being eaten by Neanderthals, and in a 20,000 year old cave painting in Spain they are depicted. So, I would say to 'some' people, these birds had survived for a long time. They didn't lack survival instincts.
We killed them, not natural selection.
There's a long tradition of Great Auk hunting in some Native American cultures: it was a cultural icon. They ate it, too. Another extinct race, the Beothuks also made a practice of eating them. At their peak, Great Auk numbers were estimated in the millions so it's no wonder they were a popular food source.
It's also a bad survival trait as a bird to have very soft feathers. Unfortunately, the Great Auk did, and it was hunted for its down, since it was so soft. Some used eider for a while but then on that island their numbers grew low and they fell back on the reliable Great Auk. Of course. And European settlers were no less discriminatory. One expedition, running out of food, simply herded a huge flock of Great Auk onto the boat and slaughtered them mercilessly. They were easy food for the starving. Why wouldn't they kill them? And as they grew rarer, so did their popularity with collectors. And so there was yet another person hunting them, the eager man ready for some easy money.
With all odds against it, what was there to do?
The last Great Auk in the British Isles was captured by villagers in Scotland. After keeping it for a couple days, a huge storm rose up, and believing the Auk to have waved a magic wand of doom and created it, they executed it for being a witch. Talk about dumb reasons to make a species extinct.
In the Americas, the last Great Auks were killed by ón Brandsson, Sigurður Ísleifsson, and Ketill Ketilsson for a merchant wanting to show off this rarity. I won't tell you their story. Let them.
"The rocks were covered with blackbirds and there were the Geirfugles ... They walked slowly. Jón Brandsson crept up with his arms open. The bird that Jón got went into a corner but [mine] was going to the edge of the cliff. [I] caught it close to the edge – a precipice many fathoms deep. The black birds were flying off. I took him by the neck and he flapped his wings. He made no cry. I strangled him."-Sigurður Ísleifsson, as told to John Wolley, Great Auk specialist
Ketill Ketilsson ground his boot into the last Great Auk egg and crushed it. Currently, a preserved Great Auk egg sells for 11 times the amount a skilled worker earns in a year.
Remember the Great Auk. See its story as a representation of the ruthlessness of humans if you will. See it as a reminder of how we need to redeem ourselves. I don't care. Remember, though. Remember.
The Glasswing Butterfly
P.S. Sorry for such a long post, and probably a depressing one too. I'll try to keep it short next time.

Blogging Challenge Day 1: The Baiji Dolphin

I have to say, this extinct animal is the closest to my heart. When I heard that it had gone extinct, I cried. I'm saying that unashamedly now, but really, in 2007, it affected me that deeply that an entire species has disappeared, and only through our actions. And I would still cry now, if I heard it. The baiji dolphin lived only in the Yangtze. However, through recent years, the longest river in Asia, and third longest in the world, has become more and more polluted through human activities. The lakes dried up. Water became filthy. This once pristine river, the domain of the emperor's barges, is now- well, I'll let the picture say it all. How could the baiji river dolphin, partially blind, and sometimes called the Goddess of the Yangtze survive? A traditional Chinese folktale believes the baiji to be the reincarnation of a princess who drowned herself when her family forced her to marry someone she didn't love. The baiji's white skin is valued for handbags. In the 1950s itself, its population was estimated at only 5,000 individuals. Finally, in 2006, a research expedition from the Baiji Foundation traveled the 2,000 miles of the Yangtze river with all sorts of fancy equipment and couldn't find a single specimen. They declared this beautiful white dolphin functionally extinct. That means that even if a few individuals were left, as they probably were, they were either too old or too few or too far apart to regrow the population. In 2007 a businessman reported a video of a large white creature that was later confirmed to be a baiji. However, as I said previously, there are probably too few individuals left. A whole species is about to disappear, has disappeared, or something like that. No one can know for sure.
There might not be hope for the baiji dolphin, but that doesn't mean hope should be given up. There's another unique cetacean of the Yangtze: the finless porpoise. Let's not be too late this time. If we all work at it, let's make sure that the Yangtze river is not robbed of yet another priceless treasure.


The Glasswing Butterfly

Extinct Animal Blogging Challenge

Because I am to up to the challenge.
No matter what you say, Blobfish, I believe- at least hope- that our very small band of readers CAN read a blog post everyday for a week.
I BELIEVE!!!!
Now, just the subject of this belief I will need to explain.
So, for a week, I will write a blog post everyday on an extinct animal, to pay homage to all the animals that have died out within human history and beyond, so that we can remember how much we have to save. If I get five comments, from at least two different people, on these posts, I'll do it for another week. If you want. I don't HAVE to do it for two weeks. Only if you- you, dear reader, you one or two people who continue to persevere with our blundering efforts to depict the amazingness of the animal kingdom (mostly in glasswing butterflies).
All you have to do is read.
And I BELIEVE you can.

(Unlike one cute little deep ocean slimy creature that I could name)
Glasswing butterflies... FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!