Globally, we estimate 1430 (95% credible interval: 1327–1544) bird extinctions since the Late Pleistocene (Fig.2a). Given current estimates of 10,865 extant bird species, this suggests that 11.6% (10.9–12.4) of all bird species (approximately one in nine) have gone extinct over the last ...
“One of the things I learned from doing this is how manywhimbrelandcurlewrelatives have likely gone extinct or seem to be heading in that direction,” says study co-authorEliot Miller, an ornithologist with the American Bird Conservancy, in a Cornell ...
It also enables the researchers to consider large animals that went extinct only recently, including mammoths and lions in North America, saber-toothed tigers in South America, and elephant birds on Madagascar. Move over, Leo. Give me more elbowroom Huge flightless birds called elephant birds st...
Remember Alice Berkner, the nurse that founded this organization? This is what she had to say recently about the International Bird Rescue’s accomplishments: “Had I been told in 1971 that 30 years hence we would end up treating over 148 species of birds (not to mention assorted turtles, s...
But actual terror birds are a separate family of extinct flightless birds that lived in South America. Compared to terror birds, Gastornis was probably harmless. How did Gastornis go extinct? There is no specific conclusion on why Gastornis went extinct, but there have been various speculations...
That flightlessness is a secondary condition is made still more apparent in other flightless birds that belong to families most of whose members are capable of flight. The extinct great auk of the North Atlantic is one of the best-known examples of such a flightless bird; the rail family ...
cassowary, andrhea. Theostrichis the largest living bird and may stand 2.75 metres (9 feet) tall and weigh 150 kg (330 pounds). Some recently extinct birds were even larger: the largestmoasofNew Zealandand theelephant birdsof Madagascar may have reached over 3 metres (10 feet) in height....
Interestingly, fossil evidence suggests that hummingbirds once existed in Europe, but they went extinct there for reasons that are not entirely clear. Today, they remain exclusive to the Americas, where they have evolved into one of the most diverse and specialized bird families. ...
The Haast’s eagle (Hieraaetus moorei) is a species of eagle that was once abundant on the South Island of New Zealand. Also known as the giant eagle, Haast’s eagle holds the title of the largest eagle to have ever lived. The species went extinct around 1400, and experts link its dis...
woodpecker in the United States, it seems to keep coming back from the dead. Once resident in swampy bottomlands from North Carolina to East Texas, it was believed to have gone extinct as early as the 1920s, but sightings, confirmed and otherwise, have been reported as recently as this ...