Extinction Awareness Day

October 12th symbolizes many things.  It is National Farmers Day, National Gumbo Day, National Pulled Pork Day, and even International Moment of Frustration Scream Day. October 12th, 2021 also symbolizes for me a day of seeing a life goal achieved.  After 7 years of researching, writing, revising, learning the process of seeking a publisher (a reason to Frustration Scream at times), revising, and finally choosing to self-publish my book, my story  Deader Than a Dodo  is finally published!  Rather than being a story copied and placed in binders or sent to friends as a PDF for their thoughts, my book is finally a real boy...I mean, a real book. Now I'm  off to learn how to set up sales numbers and market the book, which will be a new learning curve.  You can order it through multiple sites like Barnes & Noble or Amazon right now as a paperback.  Since it's self-published, I don't seem to have as much say on the paperback price to start, but I do...

  Happy Halloween 2021!   Bats are synonymous with Halloween. Many people suffer from "chiroptophobia", the fear of bats.  Bats are nocturnal. They are a flying mammal.  They do swoop through the air seemingly at random.  Bats use their echolocation, which can be an eerie noise to hear, but one bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes each night.  Some bats don't stick to the usual bug diet.  They eat fruit.  In fact the the Little Mariana Fruit Bat was one of those fruit bat species.  There are at least 11 other species of bat that have also gone extinct. Also known as the Guam Flying-Fox, this fruit bat was first discovered in 1931.  It would often mix itself among the larger Marianas flying-fox. The last Little Mariana Fruit Bat was a female found at Tarague Cliff in March of 1967.  A young flying-fox flew away but was never seen again. Guam's history has played a role in the extinction of its species.  It was occupied by Cha...

  The Tubercled-Blossom Pearly Mussel was one of 11 species of freshwater mussel to be officially declared extinct barring any reports with 55 days.   This mussel was once very abundant in all rivers in the eastern U.S., especially in the Ohio River.  The biggest obstacles that the Tubercled-Blossom Pearly Mussel could not overcome was the turbidity (lack of water clarity) and the increased sediment in the waterways they called home, mostly from deforestation and farming along the rivers.  The addition of dams and pollution added to the mussel's fate. These mussels require relatively calm waters to fertilize their eggs.  Once the eggs hatch the female releases the larvae into the water.  The babies drift through the water.  If they manage to attach to the gills of a host fish, they will develop and grow into an adult. Once they reach a certain size, they release from the fish's gills and settle to the bottom of the river and can live there for 50 ...

Breaking with the normal flow of these posts, I wanted to highlight the bigger news in the U.S. on extinct species.  The United States passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 as a way to identify and save species from extinction. There are two ways to be removed from the Endangered species list.  To recover or to go extinct. The Endangered Species Act has helped save 54 species, like the brown pelican, the humpback whale, California Condor, American alligators, and our nation's symbol, the Bald Eagle to name a few. We love these animals and are glad they are doing well (see logos below). This week 23 more species were also removed from the Endangered Species List.  Should we be excited?  Well these 23 species have been deemed extinct, since there has been no proof of their existence for 50 or more years.  That means these animals are "as dead as a dodo". There is also a 55 day "comment window" for anyone to provide proof of one of these 23 species, but the out...

The Ivory Billed Woodpecker was the largest species of woodpecker in the United States.  For size, it was second only to the Imperial Woodpecker from Mexico, which went extinct in 1962. The ivory billed woodpecker gets its name from the ivory color of its bill, which is different from other species, like the common pileated woodpecker.  People often mistake the two.  Besides its size of 20 inches, the easiest way to distinguish it from a distance is by its white striped wings when in flight.  (see diagram below) The ivory billed woodpecker favored the large growth forest of the southern United States.  This is where the parents would raise their chicks in a hole in a tree.  The male and female look similar, but the male's crest was red, whereas the female's was black. The call of the ivory billed woodpecker was also unique.  It's distinct kent, kent call had been recorded in the 1930's and and example of that can be found below. This bird's love of ol...

Thank you to all of my followers (A little birdie told me there are about a dozen of you).  I have revamped my site and hope to be able to better highlight animals that have gone extinct in recent times, the past 350 years or so.   My goal for starting this blog has been 2 fold. 1) To bring attention to those animals that have gone extinct in recent years, so that we can hopefully save critically endangered animals from similar fates.  There are so many amazing creatures that we'll never be able to see in the wild or in zoos. 2) To be able to use some of my creativity to get people interested in recently extinct animals, which is why I wrote my book, Deader Than a Dodo.   I'm hoping that by putting extinct animals into an adventure, kids will get more excited about saving creatures facing similar fates in the near future. My goal is is to do a post every other day that highlights extinct animals and have  a drawing/cartoon to accompany it.  I...

The Baiji, also known as the Yangtze River Dolphin, was one of several freshwater dolphin species.  It was 7 - 8 feet long and lived in the freshwater of the Yangtze River in China.  It is believed that they lived up to 24 years.  The word "baiji" in Chinese means "white dolphin".  The Chinese called the baiji, the "Goddess of the Yangtze".   The baiji were never used as a food source, but they had trouble surviving as the people began more efficient fishing processes in the river.  The baiji would often get tangled in fishing lines and nets left in the river.  If they couldn't get the the surface to breathe, they would drown.  The development of dams and cities along the Yangtze River caused additional stressors for the baiji.   Scientists in China began working on a species protection plan in 1985.  The last baiji in captivity died in 2002.  In 2006 the baiji was listed as "critically endangered" (meaning very few were r...

I started this blog  to point out animals you'll never get a chance to meet first hand.  No, I'm not talking about unicorns or centaurs, but about recently extinct animals.  2014 was a big one in extinction news because it marked the 100 year anniversary of the passenger pigeon, when Martha died at the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914 at 1pm.  I took my family to the Cincinnati Zoo, but Martha's statue wasn't there because they were building a memorial that opened a few weeks after our visit. My wife and I also got to see the real Lonesome George who was on display in New York at the Natural History Museum, before being shipped back to be displayed in the Galapagos.  

The Pinta Island Tortoise, also known as the Abingdon Island Tortoise, was thought to be extinct in the early 1900's, until Lonesome George was discovered on Pinta Island in 1971 by scientists working there.   Domed Shell Saddle back "Pinties" as they were sometimes called, were one of 15 subspecies of Galapagos tortoises.  5 are no longer in existence.  Galapagos tortoises come in two "styles" The larger "dome shelled" tortoises with shorter necks for eating ground vegetation and the "saddle back" tortoises which were lighter with longer necks to reach higher vegetation.  Pinta Island Tortoises were part of the saddle back group. The Galapagos tortoises were hunted by whalers and pirates as a food source because they could weigh up to 900 lbs and live for over 6 months without any food or water.  Hundreds would be rounded up at a time, and used for meals later in the year.  It is believed that there were once 250,000 tortoises...