1 of 16

Presentation on the topic: extinct animals

slide number 1

Description of the slide:

slide number 2

Description of the slide:

slide number 3

Description of the slide:

“Imagine what an outburst of indignation an attempt to wipe out, say, the Tower of London from the face of the earth will cause - and this will be justified indignation. And a one-of-a-kind miraculous species that has evolved hundreds of thousands of years to reach today's perfection can be sent into oblivion in one breath, like a candle flame is extinguished, and no one will even lift a finger, except for a handful of people, no one will say a word in their protection. .." - so writes Gerald Durrell in his wonderful book "Meatloaf"

slide number 4

Description of the slide:

Passenger Pigeon The most striking and illustrative example of methodical extermination is the story of the passenger pigeon. Once millions of flocks of these birds flew in the skies of North America. Seeing food, pigeons, like huge locusts, rushed down, and when they were satisfied, they flew away, completely destroying fruits, berries, nuts, and insects. Naturally, such gluttony irritated the colonists. In addition, the pigeons tasted very good. Therefore, the extermination of pigeons turned into fun. In one of Fenimore Cooper's novels, it is very well described how, when a flock of pigeons approached, the entire population of cities and towns poured into the streets, armed with slingshots, guns, and sometimes even cannons. They killed as many pigeons as they could. Pigeons were laid in glacier cellars, cooked immediately, fed to dogs, or simply thrown away. There were even pigeon shooting competitions, and towards the end of the 19th century, machine guns were also used. The last passenger pigeon, named Marta, died in the zoo in 1914.

slide number 5

Description of the slide:

Mammoth Mammoths appeared in the Pliocene and lived 4.8 million - 4500 years ago in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. Numerous bones of mammoths have been found in the sites of an ancient man of the Stone Age; drawings and sculptures of mammoths made by prehistoric man were also found. In Siberia and Alaska, there are known cases of finding the corpses of mammoths, preserved due to their stay in the thickness of permafrost. The main species of mammoths did not exceed modern elephants in size (at the same time, the North American subspecies Mammuthus imperator reached a height of 5 meters and a mass of 12 tons, and the dwarf species Mammuthus exilis and Mammuthus lamarmorae did not exceed 2 meters in height and weighed up to 900 kg), but had more massive body, shorter legs, long hair and long curved tusks; the latter could serve the mammoth for getting food in winter from under the snow. Mammoth molars with numerous thin dentin-enamel plates were well adapted for chewing coarse plant food. Mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. According to many scientists, the hunters of the Upper Paleolithic played a significant or even decisive role in this extinction.

slide number 6

Description of the slide:

Drond is a bird that has lost the ability to fly, formerly belonging to the pigeon family. Lived on the island of Mauritius. He nested on the ground, where he was completely safe. At the same time, he not only lost the ability to fly, but also completely forgot how to recognize the enemy and fear him. European colonists exterminated it because of its delicious meat, and the goats brought by sailors ate the bush that served as shelter for the dodos, dogs and cats chased and caught old birds, pigs ate eggs and chicks, and after them rats crept picking up the remnants of the feast. One of the isolated skeletons is in the Darwin Museum in Moscow. The dodo appears in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. In the second half of the 20th century, the dodo became a symbol of the struggle for the protection and conservation of rare animal species. The last mentions date back to 1662.

slide number 7

Description of the slide:

Blue Broad-billed Parrot A bird of the parrot family, subfamily true parrots. Described according to actually the only description made in 1601-02, which is stored in the Utrecht library of Utrecht (drawing). The main color is grey-blue. A massive beak, on the head there was a pronounced crest. The wings are disproportionately short relative to the body, presumably could not fly, only fluttered. Disappeared during the cologization of the island by Europeans, who brought dogs, rats, pigs that hunted birds and destroyed nests. According to the evidence, the last bird was seen in 1638, according to other sources - in 1673. Other parrots of this island are also described, Lophopsittacus bensoni - Gray Broad-beaked. It was smaller than the Blue Broadbeak. Due to the paucity of descriptions, there is a strong possibility that the gray parrot is a female Lophopsittacus mauritanus. Gray broadbeaks were found on the island until the end of the 18th century, which may indirectly indicate the extinction of the species about 100 years after the last mention.

slide number 8

Description of the slide:

Tour It was a powerful beast with a muscular, slender body, about 170-180 cm high at the withers and weighing up to 800 kg. The high set head was crowned with long sharp horns. The coloration of adult males was black, with a narrow white “belt” along the back, while females and young animals were reddish-brown. Although the last tours lived out their days in the forests, earlier these bulls kept mainly in the forest-steppe, and often entered the steppe. In the forests, they probably migrated only in winter. They fed on grass, shoots and leaves of trees and shrubs. Their rut was in the fall, and the calves appeared in the spring. They lived in small groups or alone, and for the winter they united in larger herds. The aurochs had few natural enemies: these strong and aggressive animals easily coped with any predator.

slide number 9

Description of the slide:

In historical times, the tour was found almost throughout Europe, as well as in North Africa, Asia Minor and the Caucasus. In Africa, this beast was exterminated in the third millennium BC. e., in Mesopotamia - by about 600 BC. e. In Central Europe, tours survived much longer. Their disappearance here coincided with intensive deforestation in the 9th-11th centuries. In the XII century, tours were still found in the Dnieper basin. At that time they were actively exterminated. Records about the difficult and dangerous hunting of wild bulls were left by Vladimir Monomakh. By 1400, the aurochs lived only in the relatively sparsely populated and inaccessible forests of Poland and Lithuania. Here they were taken under the protection of the law and lived like park animals in the royal lands. In 1599, a small herd of aurochs, 24 individuals, still lived in the royal forest 50 km from Warsaw. By 1602, only 4 animals remained in this herd, and in 1627 the last tour on Earth died. However, the disappeared tour left a good memory of itself: it was these bulls that in ancient times became the ancestors of various breeds of cattle. At present, there are still enthusiasts who hope to revive the tours, using, in particular, Spanish bulls, which more than others have retained the features of their wild ancestors. The tour is depicted on the national emblem of the Republic of Moldova, as well as on the emblem of the city of Turka in the Lviv region of Ukraine.

slide number 10

Description of the slide:

Steller's cow Sea cow - a mammal of the siren order, in many ways resembled the manatee and dugong, but was much larger than them. Large herds of these animals swam at the very surface of the water, feeding on sea kale (kelp), which is why the animal was called a sea cow. Its meat, which was very tasty and did not smell like fish, was actively eaten, so that the Steller's cow was completely exterminated in just 30 years, despite the impressive size of the population. True, individual testimonies of sailors who allegedly noticed several sea cows came before the 1970s and, possibly, later. The skeleton of a sea cow can be seen at the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University.

slide number 11

Description of the slide:

Quagga Quagga, which lived in southern Africa, belongs to the order of odd-toed ungulates. In front, she had a striped color, like a zebra, in the back - a bay color of a horse. The Boers exterminated the quagga for its tough hide. Quagga is perhaps the only extinct animal whose representatives were tamed by humans and used to guard herds. Quaggs, much earlier than domestic sheep, cows, chickens, noticed the approach of predators, and warned the owners with a loud cry of “kuah”, from which they got their name. The last quagga was killed in 1878.

slide number 12

Description of the slide:

Carolina parrot The only representative of parrots on the North American continent, the Carolina parrot lived in North America from North Dakota to Mississippi and Florida, reaching up to 42 degrees north latitude. It tolerated the harsh winter cold quite well. Extinct due to merciless extermination by hunters. Such strong persecution was due to the damage caused by these parrots to fields and fruit trees. The last parrot died at the zoo in 1918.

slide number 13

Description of the slide:

MOA In the 19th century, paleontologists discovered that huge flightless birds lived in New Zealand. The bones found during the excavations were amazing. So, the femur of a giant feathered one was three times as thick as the thigh of the largest modern bird - the African ostrich, and was one and a half times longer. According to scientists, the growth of the fossil bird was over two meters! Outwardly, she resembled a gigantic ostrich on thick "elephant" legs. These giants once played the role of large herbivorous mammals in treeless territories (which, however, in those days occupied a more modest area than now). By analogy with dinosaurs - “terrible lizards”, the New Zealand ostrich was called dinornis - “terrible bird”.

slide number 14

Description of the slide:

It is interesting that on their feet the dinornis had not two, like an ostrich, and not three, like a rhea, emu, cassowaries, but as many as four fingers. But the most surprising thing was that the bones of some dinornis, as well as the shells of their eggs, did not have time to fossilize, like most fossil objects. Moreover, pieces of skin with feathers, mummified heads and legs were found. It seemed that the birds had died out quite recently. It turned out that the giant birds were still caught alive by the Polynesian Maori, who moved to New Zealand only in the 16th-17th centuries! The Maori called them “moa”, and it was under this name that the New Zealand ostriches became known to the whole world. Most of the feathered giants were exterminated by the predecessors of the Maori on the islands - undersized dark-skinned tribes of Australian or Melanesian origin. Hunting ostriches was their main occupation. Some species of moa became extinct due to natural causes, others were destroyed by the natives; it is believed that only three species of moa out of twenty survived until the appearance of Europeans on the islands, remaining for some time in the most inaccessible corners. One of them - a gigantic dinornis - reached almost three meters in height, a large broad-beaked moa was the size of an African ostrich, and a small moa was the size of a large bustard.

slide number 15

Description of the slide:

Measures to protect endangered species Only in the twentieth century, mankind came to the conclusion that the extermination of rare species of animals can cause irreparable damage to nature. However, early efforts to conserve species were often unsuccessful. In particular, this was due to the fact that zoologists tried to reanimate the species, having only one or two pairs of individuals at their disposal. According to a Millennium Ecosystem Assessment study, animal species are now dying out 100 to 1,000 times faster than the normal evolutionary process. Gerald Durrell contributed to changing this situation. He became the first person to turn the zoo into an institution for breeding rare species of animals. To restore the population of an endangered species, at least several pairs of unrelated individuals are required, conditions of detention and food, selected individually for each species. A positive result of work on the conservation of species is achieved if there are enough individuals to successfully resettle them in their natural habitat, or in a similar environment if the natural environment is destroyed by man. In this way, many species of animals have already been saved. If an animal is already rare, but not yet on the verge of extinction, the creation of reserves is practiced.

Completed by: Bazhukova Ksenia In the XX century. scientists have discovered more than 50 species of previously unknown animals and birds. But during the same time, more than 100 other species completely disappeared from the face of the Earth. Until 1960 alone, 25 species of mammals disappeared. People, not thinking about tomorrow, about their future, the future of fauna and all wildlife, predatory destroyed animals. About 400 years ago, in Europe, North Africa, the Caucasus, and Asia Minor, the ancestors of domestic cattle lived - tours. Tur was an unusually slender and beautiful animal. High-legged, strong, with a straight back and a head planted on a powerful neck with beautiful, lyre-shaped curved horns. The bulls of the aurochs were dull black, the cows were reddish-brown. These animals lived in damp swampy forest areas in small herds. They had no enemies, the wolves were powerless against strong tours. Their victims were sometimes only old or sick animals. However, the tour can only be spoken of in the past tense. The mention of the tour is found in many historical documents, where hunting for these animals is often described. They lasted the longest in Poland and Lithuania. The Polish king Sigismund III Vasa issued an order to protect the habitats of the aurochs. But the guards were too late. At that time, only a few dozen aurochs lived in the Yaktorovsky forest, near Warsaw. Nothing could save them from extinction, and in 1627 the last tour fell. It is interesting that in no country even a stuffed animal remained from the tour. A similar thing happened with the European steppe horse - tarpan. It was exterminated over 100 years ago for its meat. In the middle of the last century, herds of these animals were found throughout the Azov-Black Sea region. In 1879, free tarpans in the south of the country were destroyed. The only tarpan skeleton in the world is kept in the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. The quagga zebra, which lived in the steppe plains and savannahs of South Africa, fell victim to human greed. She was killed by hunters for her beautiful skin - reddish brown with white spots and chocolate stripes on the neck. The last quagga died in the Amsterdam Zoo in 1883. In 1741, the Russian scientist Georg Steller discovered an animal unknown to people belonging to the order of sirens near the Commander Islands - a sea or Steller's cow. It was a harmless and clumsy huge animal 7.5 m long and weighing 3.5 tons. The sea cow ate brown algae, kelp - sea kale. Steller's cows lived in shallow water near the coast. They were constantly busy eating. Every 4–5 min, the animals raised their heads above the water to inhale a portion of fresh air, and again began eating seaweed. Unfortunately for these animals, their meat turned out to be tasty and nutritious. Numerous whalers mercilessly hunted sea cows, and their herd quickly decreased. In 1768 the last animal was killed. Steller's cow was known to people for only 27 years. The last thylacine (marsupial wolf) died in 1936. The relationship between man and birds has developed in different ways for a long time. Many birds were exterminated. Over the past four centuries, according to the French conservationist Jean Doret, 86 species of birds have disappeared. So, the Polynesians destroyed a huge bird - a moa weighing about 300 kg; the inhabitants of New Zealand burned the vegetation, and birds and their nests died in the process. The dodo lived on the island of Mauritius. In 1681, people saw this bird for the last time. The dodo was completely destroyed, even its effigies were not preserved, only a graphic image remained. It was a fat and clumsy bird weighing about 20 kg. She flew badly and could not run fast. And even a strong beak could not save her from people. The wingless auk, which lived on the islands of North America, was the size of a goose. She walked like a penguin, holding her torso upright. Although she could not fly, she swam excellently. The famous Carl Linnaeus managed to describe this bird. The last pair of nesting great auks were killed in 1844 in Iceland. Only a few remaining stuffed animals in museums remind us of the Labrador eider. This bird was shy and cautious, did not let a person close to him. Very little is known about her disappearance. Apparently, its numbers were not high at all, in the 50s of the XIX century. she began to meet rarely, and soon disappeared completely. The passenger pigeon was destroyed under tragic circumstances. At the beginning of the XIX century. from 3 to 5 billion of its individuals lived in North America - the number of this species was so high. Almost every hunter did not miss the opportunity to shoot a passenger pigeon. Its tender meat was considered a delicacy, and the habit of flying and nesting in large flocks made it an easy prey for humans. By 1880, these birds became so few that it was already impossible to save them. The last wild passenger pigeon was shot dead in 1899, and the last of those who lived in captivity died in a cage in 1914. Thus, due to the irresponsibility and greed of people, a species of a rare bird died. The Carolina parrot, the only parrot living in the United States, also became a victim of man. These birds were exterminated as garden pests, because they pecked at the green ovary of the fruit. As the country settled, the range of the Carolina parrot, which once covered all the southern states, was continuously reduced. In 1920, only a flock of 30 birds was recorded in Florida. And soon the Carolina parrot disappeared altogether. The last meadow chicken died in 1932 on Mortus Vineyard Island off the coast of Massachusetts. Measures taken too late to protect this bird did not save her. Now she is gone. If an animal has disappeared from the face of the Earth for too long, it is no longer possible to revive it. By crossing in the twentieth century, bison and bison were revived, which also practically disappeared. They were lucky - close relatives turned out to be in nature, from which it was possible to take breeding material.

Description of the presentation on individual slides:

1 slide

Description of the slide:

2 slide

Description of the slide:

Lesser Rabbit Bandicoot The Lesser Rabbit Bandicoot, once known as the Yallara, is one of two species of marsupial mammals in the genus Rabbit Bandicoot. The Yallars, who once lived in the sultry deserts in the heart of the Australian continent, were less fortunate: the last of them was discovered in the state of South Australia in 1931. Then the story of these small, tailed rabbit-like animals ends, and today the small rabbit bandicoots are officially considered dead look.

3 slide

Description of the slide:

It is only known that animals growing up to 30-40 cm preferred sandy and clay soil, in which they dug deep, up to 2-3 meters, holes. At night they hunted ants, termites, small rodents, collected roots and seeds, and during the day they rested in their cool shelters, prudently covering the entrance with sand. Unlike its closest relative, the rabbit bandicoot, the lesser bandicoot was known for its aggressive, stubborn, and unyielding nature. He responded to all attempts to take it in his hands with an evil hiss, scratched and resisted with all his might. Scientists believe that cats and foxes imported to the continent, as well as constant rivalry with rabbits for food, became the cause of the death of an entire species.

4 slide

Description of the slide:

Dodo or Dodo Bird Once upon a time, on the picturesque deserted islands, lost somewhere in the Indian Ocean, there lived dodo birds - representatives of the dodo subfamily (lat. Raphinae). There were no people or predators here, so the birds felt like they were in paradise. They didn’t have to run, swim or take to the air, because everything they needed for life lay right under their feet. Gradually, all the dodos forgot how to fly, their tail turned into a tiny crest, and only a few miserable feathers remained of the wings.

5 slide

Description of the slide:

Dodos led a solitary life, joining in pairs only for the time of raising chicks. There was only one large white egg in the clutch, but both parents carefully guarded it and fed the baby together. The dodo idyll ended with the appearance of Europeans on the islands. At first, the Portuguese sailors considered them an ideal replenishment of the ship's stores, and then the Dutch followed suit. Hunting gullible and fearless birds was as easy as shelling pears: just come closer and hit suitable prey on the head with a stick. The dodos not only offered no resistance, but also did not run away. Yes, and they could not do this with their weight.

6 slide

Description of the slide:

Unfortunately, there is not a single complete set of dodo bones anywhere in the world. The only copy was kept in the Oxford Museum and burned down in a fire in 1755. After that, none of the scientists managed to get a whole skeleton. Researchers came across only fragments of the skull and some individual bones. Sailors thought the dodos were stupid and called them "dodo", which means "stupid" or "idiot" in Portuguese.

7 slide

Description of the slide:

Dodos were remembered only at the end of the 19th century, when Lewis Carroll's book Alice in Wonderland was published. One of the heroes of this children's fairy tale was the Dodo bird, which was supposed to represent the author himself. Many readers became interested in the mythical bird and were surprised to find out that it actually existed. They realized it too late, when the dodos could no longer be helped. A little later, the Jersey Animal Conservation Trust chose this bird as its emblem - as a symbol of the destruction of species as a result of the barbaric invasion of wildlife.

8 slide

Description of the slide:

The Steller's Cow One of the most bitter reminders of human cruelty is the story of the Steller's cow. Its other names are sea cow or cabbage. It was first discovered off the coast of the Commander Islands in 1741, and after 27 years the last representative of the species living there was killed.

9 slide

Description of the slide:

Yes, yes, it took a little more than a quarter of a century to completely exterminate the population of more than 2 thousand individuals. People tried very hard: at least 170 heads were killed a year, and the peak of this bloody massacre came in 1754, when five thousand cabbages were destroyed at once. At the same time, no measures were taken to preserve and maintain the number of animals. The misfortunes of the sea cow began in 1741, when the ship "Saint Peter" was wrecked near one of the small islands, later named after the ship's captain Vitus Bering. On this godforsaken island, the team was forced to stay for the winter. Unfortunately, not everyone survived it, and the captain was among the dead. To survive, the sailors were forced to capture one of the strange marine animals that eat algae near the shore.

10 slide

Description of the slide:

Its meat turned out to be not only tasty, but also useful. Strength quickly returned to the sick, and soon the team was able to build a new ship to return home on it. Among the survivors was the naturalist Georg Steller, who described sea cows in detail. True, the scientist himself was sure that manatees were in front of him, and only in 1780 the German zoologist Zimmerman was able to prove that this was a completely new species. What did this animal look like? According to Steller, it was a huge and very clumsy creature, whose body length reached 7.5-10 meters and weighed 3.5-11 tons. His torso was very thick, and his head seemed very small against his background. The forelimbs were rounded flippers with one joint in the center. They ended in a small horny growth, similar to a horse's hoof. Instead of hind limbs, cabbage had a powerful forked tail.

11 slide

Description of the slide:

The skin of Steller's cow was very durable. It was even often used to make sea boats. It was so folded and thick that it looked a bit like oak bark. Such protection was needed to save from sharp coastal stones, especially when the sea was rough. Interestingly, after the extermination of Steller's cow, the scientific world was disturbed several times by reports of people meeting with these unique creatures.

12 slide

Description of the slide:

Unfortunately, none of them have been confirmed yet. The latest news refers to June 2012: according to some online publications, the Steller's cow is alive - a population of 30 individuals was found off a small island belonging to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The melting of the ice made it possible to penetrate into its most remote corners, where the cabbage plants were found. Let's hope that the rumors of sub-humanity will be able to circulate and correct their fatal mistake.

13 slide

Description of the slide:

14 slide

Description of the slide:

In contrast to the miniature Balinese tiger, the Caspian tiger had an impressive size, almost as good as the massive Amur tiger. These large wild cats inhabited vast territories along the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas, Northern Iran, part of Afghanistan and Central Asia and have always been an object of hunting.

15 slide

Description of the slide:

The extermination of the Caspian, or Turanian, tigers became widespread at the end of the 19th century, when the Russian Empire began the conquest of Turkestan.

16 slide

Description of the slide:

Their path to extinction began in 1887 in Iraq, and the last of the Transcaucasian tigers was seen in the 1970s near the borders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The last unconfirmed rumors about a meeting with a Turanian tiger date back to the early 1990s.

To use the preview of presentations, create a Google account (account) and sign in: https://accounts.google.com

Slides captions:

Animals exterminated by man Completed by biology teacher MBOU secondary school No. 37 of Khabarovsk A.S. Lukyanenko

Everyone knows the International Red Book, which lists rare and endangered species of animals and plants. There is also a Black Book - a list of animals and plants that have disappeared forever from the face of the Earth already in historical time. Man is directly or indirectly to blame for the disappearance of most of them. This list dates back to 1600. If the Red Book is an alarm signal and a call to action, then the Black Book serves as a warning to man and reminds of those unique creatures of nature that cannot be returned.

Steller's (sea) cow

Discovered in 1741 by Georg Steller (scientist of the expedition of V. I. Bering). At first, Steller believed that he was dealing with a common manatee and called the animal he discovered "manat". “If you would ask me how many I saw them on Bering Island, then I would not hesitate to answer - they cannot be counted, they are countless ...” Steller wrote. However, the animal was not at all afraid of people and was ruthlessly exterminated. Basically, people used subcutaneous fat and meat from sea cows. “The smell and taste of fat are very pleasant and the taste is much superior to that of marine and domestic animals. This fat can be stored even on the hottest days, does not go out and does not stink. The meat is red, denser than beef, it does not differ in taste from it, it is stored for a long time on hot days, without smell ... The milk of cows is fat and sweet, thick and tastes like sheep, ”Steller wrote in his notes. As a result of predatory fishing, by 1768 Steller's cow was completely exterminated. Fossils of sea cows close or even identical to Steller's have been found in the Pacific coastal zones from California to Japan. According to biologist V. N. Kalyakin, the population of sea cows described by Steller was even then the pitiful remnants of a once prosperous family, destroyed by the Pacific natives. But still, the Steller's cow set a sad record of human recklessness - a little more than a quarter of a century passed from the discovery of the species to extermination. Georg Steller was the only naturalist who saw these animals alive and left a detailed description of the species to history.

Quagga (lat. Equus quagga quagga) - an exterminated equine animal, previously considered a separate species of zebra; according to modern research - a subspecies of Burchell's zebra - Equus quagga quagga. The quaggs lived in South Africa. In front they had a striped color, like a zebra, in the back - a bay color of a horse, a body length of 180 cm. Boers exterminated quaggs for their strong skins. Quagga is perhaps the only extinct animal whose representatives were tamed by humans and used to protect herds: much earlier than domestic sheep, cows, chickens, quagga noticed the approach of predators and warned the owners with a loud cry “kuah”, from which they got their name. The last wild quagga was killed in 1878. The last quagga in the world died at the Amsterdam Zoo in 1883.

These clumsy turkey-sized birds lived in the Mascarene Islands, lost in the Indian Ocean. In the conditions of life on isolated islands with a mild climate, where land-based predators were completely absent and an abundant harvest of fruits ripened, the dodo ancestors no longer needed to fly. No longer restrained by the laws of aerodynamics, the size and body weight of pigeons grew, the wings that became unnecessary decreased. Birds switched to a terrestrial way of life, picking up the fallen gifts of the forest.

At the end of the 16th century, the Mascarene Islands were discovered by Europeans, and the prosperity of the dodos ended. The extermination of these birds happened so quickly that even museum stuffed animals could not be preserved. The descendants inherited several incomplete skeletons and the paw and head of an ordinary dodo, which remained from the old stuffed animal. We can now judge the appearance of dodos only by old drawings and descriptions. The beating of the dodos was started by sailors who yearned for fresh meat during their sea voyages. They killed the birds simply with sticks, and they did not run away anywhere, having completely lost the instinct of self-preservation over the millennia of a comfortable life. Portuguese and Spanish sailors called the birds "dodo" - a fool, a fool. Under this name, dodos have firmly entered the world literature. Completed the destruction of the dodo pigs, dogs and cats brought to the islands by people. They destroyed the nests of birds located right on the ground in a multitude. Since the female dodo laid only one egg and incubated it for almost two months, as a result of the robbery of predators in the nesting areas, the population of flightless giants quickly melted. The common dodo died out around 1680, the white dodo in 1746, and the hermit lived almost until the beginning of the 19th century. Dodos marked the beginning of a mournful list of birds, completely exterminated by man. And in memory of these strange creatures, we were left with only bones, drawings and an English proverb - “Dead like a dodo”.

Passenger pigeon

The passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is an extinct bird of the pigeon family. Until the 19th century, it was one of the most common birds on Earth, the total number of which was estimated at 3-5 billion individuals.

Lifestyle The passenger pigeon kept in huge flocks, the nesting colony of pigeons in Wisconsin occupied all the trees in the forest on an area of 2200 km², the total number of the colony was estimated at 160 million individuals, sometimes there were up to hundreds of nests on one tree. During the season, a pair of passenger pigeons hatched only one chick. Extinction The decline in population occurred gradually from 1800 to 1870, but a catastrophic decline in the number of birds occurred from 1860 to 1870. The extinction of the passenger pigeon was due to the influence of many factors, the main of which was poaching. The last mass nesting was observed in 1883, the last time a passenger pigeon was found in the wild in 1900 in Ohio, USA. The last pigeon, Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden (USA) on September 1, 1914.

parrot

Distribution Lived in North America from North Dakota to Mississippi and Florida, reaching 42 degrees north latitude. He was the only representative of parrots on the North American continent. Causes of extinction Extinct due to ruthless destruction by hunters. The ongoing persecution of individuals was explained by the damage caused by these parrots to fields and fruit trees. The last two individuals remained at the Cincinnati Zoo. Their names were Lady Jane and Inkas. But, unfortunately, Lady Jane died in the summer of 1917, followed by Inkas in February 1918. Wild birds were last seen in 1926 in Florida, in the vicinity of Lake Okeechobee, and rumors of meetings of Carolina parrots spread in the states of Florida, Alabama, Georgia until 1938. How accurate this information is is unknown.

Tur (lat. Bos primigenius) is a primitive wild bull, the progenitor of modern cattle, the closest relatives are watussi and gray Ukrainian cattle. Now considered extinct. The last individual was not killed while hunting, but died in 1627 in the forests near Yaktorovo - it is believed that due to a disease that affected a small genetically weak and isolated population of the last animals of this genus.

great auk

The great auk (lat. Pinguinus impennis) is a large flightless bird of the auk family, which became extinct in the middle of the 19th century. She was the only modern member of the genus Pinguinus, which previously included the Atlantic Razorbill. The great auk bred mainly on rocky, isolated islands, which were a rarity in nature for large nesting sites. In search of food, auks spent most of their time in the Atlantic Ocean, whose waters covered New England, northern Spain, eastern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Norway, Ireland and Great Britain. As the largest member of the auk family, the great auk was 75 to 85 cm (30 to 33 in) long and weighed about 5 kg (11 lb). The great auk has been known to humans for over 100,000 years. She was the most important source of food and a symbol of many Indian cultures that coexisted next to her. Many people of the maritime archaic culture were buried with the remains of the great auk. In one such burial, more than 200 auk beaks were found, which, as expected, were the decoration of the cloak of an ancient person.

Due to the hunting of people for a bird for its meat, fluff and use as bait, the number of wingless auks began to decline sharply by the middle of the 16th century. Realizing that the wingless auk was on the verge of extinction, scientists decided to include it in the list of protected species, but this was not enough to save the bird. The growing rarity of the bird increased the already strong interest of European museums and private collectors in obtaining stuffed animals and eggs, thereby ruining the last attempt to save the great auk. The last sighting of a great auk took place on July 3, 1844, near the Icelandic island of Eldi, although this date remains controversial, as reports of individual sightings and even the capture of some individuals began to arrive. According to some ornithologists, the last sighting of a great auk occurred in 1852, which resulted in a single individual observed on the Great Bank of Newfoundland.

Tarpan (lat. Equus ferus ferus) is an extinct ancestor of the modern horse, which is a subspecies of the Wild horse (Equus ferus). Back in the 18th-19th centuries, it was widely distributed in the steppes of a number of European countries, the southern and southeastern European part of Russia, in Western Siberia and on the territory of Western Kazakhstan. In the 18th century, there were many tarpans near Voronezh. There has always been a rather sharp conflict between man and herds of tarpans, as growing populations of people gradually invaded the habitats of steppe and forest tarpans, seizing more and more territories for themselves and their livestock and pushing wild horses back. Tarpans, with all caution, during the winter hunger strikes periodically ate stocks of hay left unattended right in the steppe. In addition, the meat of wild horses has been considered the best and rarest food for centuries, and the paddock of a wild horse demonstrated the virtues of a horse under a rider. As a result, people constantly and intensely pursued tarpans, killing adults and catching foals. It is generally accepted that the tarpans died out due to the plowing of the steppes for fields. They were supplanted by herds of domestic animals that occupied pastures and a watering hole. In 1918, the last (steppe) tarpan died on an estate near Mirgorod in the Poltava province. Now the skull of this tarpan is stored in the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University, and the skeleton is in the Zoological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg.

Tasmanian wolf The marsupial wolf (thylacine) was one of the largest predatory marsupials. In length, the thylacine reached 100-130 cm, together with the tail 150-180 cm; height at the shoulders - 60 cm, weight - 20-25 kg. The elongated mouth could open very wide, by 120 degrees: when the animal yawned, its jaws formed an almost straight line. The last wild thylacine was killed on May 13, 1930, and in 1936 the last captive thylacine died of old age at a private zoo in Hobart. The marsupial wolf may have survived in the deep forests of Tasmania. From time to time there are reports of the discovery of this species. In March 2005, the Australian magazine The Bulletin offered a $1.25 million reward to anyone who caught a live thylacine, but no one was caught or even photographed.

Falkland fox The Falkland fox had a height at the withers of 60 cm, reddish-brown fur, black ears, a white tip of the tail and a light belly. She had a broad skull and small ears. She could bark like a dog. She presumably fed on birds nesting on the ground (penguins and geese), insects and larvae, as well as plants and carrion thrown out by the sea. Since she was the only land predator on the islands, she probably had no difficulty in obtaining food. This species was discovered by the English captain John Strong in 1692; was officially described in 1792. In 1833, when Charles Darwin visited the Falkland Islands, Canis antarcticus (as the Falkland fox was then called) was quite common here, but even then Darwin predicted the extinction of the species, the number of which was steadily declining due to uncontrolled shooting by trappers. The thick fluffy fur of this fox was in great demand. Since the 1860s, when Scottish colonists arrived on the islands, foxes have been massively shot and poisoned as a threat to sheep herds. The absence of forests on the islands and the gullibility of this predator, which had no natural enemies, quickly led to its destruction. The last Falkland fox was killed in 1876 in West Falkland. All that remains of her at the moment are 11 samples in the museums of London, Stockholm, Brussels and Leiden.

European lion The European lion was a contemporary of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The habitat of the only large representative of the feline on the European continent spread throughout the south, along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and was found on the territory of the modern Balkans, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. Among the Greeks, Romans and Macedonians, the lion was a popular object of hunting and often participated in Roman gladiator fights, as a deliberate victim. By the beginning of the first millennium, European lions were practically exterminated. The last of the European lions was killed in Greece around 100 AD.

slide 1

Extinct animals
Completed by 4th grade students Anastasia Dalidovich, Alina Sorokova, Alexandra Papanova, Yana Ridel Head Kharitonova Z.L.

slide 2

Golden toad. This small bright orange toad was first described only in 1966, when it lived in large numbers in an area of 30 square miles, near the city of Monteverde, Costa Rica. For a long time, the ideal temperature and humidity for its existence was maintained in its habitat, but human activity has changed the usual environmental parameters, which led to the disappearance of this animal. Since May 15, 1989, not a single individual has been seen.

slide 3

Black Cameroonian rhinoceros. Until recently, it was very common in the savanna south of the Sahara. However, despite all the efforts made to protect these animals, poaching has led to their complete extinction. Their horns were considered by many to have medicinal value. The black Cameroonian rhinoceros was last seen in 2006, after which it was not seen again, in connection with which it was officially declared extinct in 2011.

slide 4

Pinta Island Tortoise (Abingdon Elephant Tortoise) This is the largest animal of those that have become extinct in the most recent time. Lonesome George, who was over 100 years old (pictured) was the last of the species and died on June 24, 2012 from heart failure.

slide 5

The Caspian tiger inhabited vast territories along river corridors in sparse forests to the west and south of the Caspian Sea. Its habitat was from Turkey and Iran through Central Asia to the Takla Makan Desert, China. The Caspian tiger, like the Siberian and Bengal subspecies of the tiger, was the largest feline that ever existed. The population of this subspecies began to decline sharply in the 1920s, which was associated with hunting for them, a reduction in habitat, and a decrease in the amount of food. The last such tiger was killed in February 1970 in the Turkish province of Hakkari.

slide 6

The Bali tiger is one of the smallest tigers that has ever lived. The Bali tigers had short, bright orange fur and were about the size of leopards or mountain lions. The last confirmed case of this tiger being killed was in September 1937. But until the 1940s or 1950s, it was suspected that there were still a small number of individuals left on the island. The Bali tigers became extinct due to loss of habitat and because of the fashionable passion for hunting among Europeans. Unfortunately, the photo is not clear, it was taken in 1913.

Slide 7

Barbary lion Previously, the Barbary lion (also known as the Atlas or Nubian lion) lived in the territory from Morocco to Egypt. This lion was the largest and heaviest among the lion subspecies. He was distinguished by a particularly thick dark mane, which went far beyond his shoulders and hung down on his stomach. The last wild Barbary lion was shot in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco in 1922. The photo was taken in 1893 in Algiers.

Slide 8

Mexican Grizzlies Grizzlies can live in more than just North American or Canadian climates. Previously, the grizzly also lived in Mexico. This animal belonged to the subspecies of the brown bear. The Mexican grizzly was a very large bear with small ears and a high forehead. It was finally exterminated by ranchers in the 60s of the last century, as it was a danger to their livestock. By 1960, only 30 individuals remained, but by 1964, the Mexican grizzly was already considered extinct.

Slide 9

Thylacine - Marsupial Wolf It was the largest marsupial carnivore of our time (it was about 60 cm high and about 180 cm long with the tail). Thylacines once lived in mainland Australia and New Guinea, but as a result of human activities, they were already almost extinct there by the time of colonization by Europeans. However, they remained in Tasmania, where they were called Tasmanian tigers or Tasmanian wolves. The last thylacine in the wild was killed in 1930. And in captivity, the last Thylacine, which is shown in the photo, died in 1936. However, as early as the 1960s, people were hoping that Thylacines might still be around somewhere, and until the 1980s they were not officially considered completely extinct. And so far, however, isolated reports of sightings of the surface in Tasmania and New Guinea.

Slide 10

Tarpan or Eurasian Wild Horse lived in the steppes of a number of European countries, in the European part of Russia, in Western Siberia and on the territory of Western Kazakhstan. The height at the withers of Tarpan reached 136 cm with a body length of about 150 cm. Tarpans had a standing mane and thick wavy hair, which in summer was black-brown, yellow-brown or dirty yellow, and in winter it became lighter with a dark stripe along the back. They had dark legs, a mane and tail, and strong hooves that did not require horseshoes. The last forest Tarpan was killed on the territory of the modern Kaliningrad region in 1814. In 1879, the last steppe tarpan in nature was killed in the steppe in the Kherson region of Ukraine. The last Tarpan who lived in captivity died in 1918. The photo was taken at the Moscow Zoo in 1884 and is claimed to be the only photo of a living Tarpan.

slide 11

The quagga The quagga is a subspecies of the plains zebra that lived in the wild in South Africa in large numbers. However, Quagga was exterminated for meat and skins. The last wild Quagga was shot in 1878, and in captivity the last individual died in August 1883. Quagga is perhaps the only extinct animal whose representatives were tamed by humans and used to guard herds. It is the only animal of this subspecies ever photographed (London Zoo).

slide 12

TUR A primitive type of wild bull, the tur was about 2 m tall and had very long horns, sometimes reaching 80 cm. A direct ancestor of cattle bred in modern Europe and Spanish black fighting bulls, in Poland he lived until the 17th century. Here the last representative of this species died in the reserve, which was organized to save him. “They are only slightly smaller than elephants and are related to bulls. They are very strong and run very fast. No one can feel safe when they are around. They cannot be tamed even at a very early age. Anyone who kills them in large numbers proudly displays their horns as trophies and is deeply respected. The horns are different from those of our bulls and are in great demand. If they are bordered with silver, they make wonderful goblets used at solemn feasts. (Julius Caesar) Considered finally extinct around 1627.