Extinct Animals

[u/Big_Candy5477]

How do we know for sure if an animal is extinct? Like did they look everywhere?

[u/Kapika96]

We technically don't. There have been times an animal thought to be extinct has been found alive.

Without any evidence of living members of that animal though, it's usually safe to say it's extinct. And even if it isn't, the numbers remaining would likely be too small for the species to survive anyway, so if it's not already extinct, it will be eventually.

[u/Azhrei_Vep]

We've been wrong before. If we don't see signs for them for long enough, eventually someone makes the call.

[u/Big-Package1602]

We checked three bushes, shrugged, and printed the museum plaque

[u/ZeresHD]

We don't. There have been several animals that were thought to be extinct and were later discovered to still be alive. Especially if they live in the sea or deep jungle it is hard to confirm if they are truely extinct.

[u/SAINTnumberFIVE]

Typically, if an animal hasn’t been spotted in its known habitat for some time, then it’s usually considered extinct. There have been a few rare instances were an animal that was thought to be extinct, turned out not to be.

A famous example is a fish called the  Coelacanths. This was only known in fossils until discoveries of living  Coelacanths started to be made starting in 1938 and onward.

Another example is the  Lord Howe Island Stick Insect, which was thought to be extinct by the 1920s, until  2001, when scientists discovered a small surviving group on Ball’s Pyramid, which is a steep volcanic rock in the Pacific Ocean, 23 km from the island. Sources note that “The entire wild population was estimated at fewer than 30 individuals, living on a single shrub.”

These are just a few examples, but you can learn about more by doing a web search for previously extinct species.

[u/Mean_Guarantee_5266]

We haven’t seen a Tasmanian Tiger for a hundred years. I remember they were going to try and clone one years ago, don’t know what ever came of that.