10 Extinct Animals Of The Last 100 Years, & Before – List

November 20, 2016 in Animals & Insects

While the title of this article implies that it will focus on animals that have gone extinct only within the last 100 years, it won’t. It will actually showcase a number of animals that have gone extinct over the last 15,000 years, and longer. The animals featured start out with relatively recent extinctions, such as the Carolina Parakeet, and the European Lion, and work their way back in time.

The animals to be highlighted include the largest eagle to have ever existed, the Haast’s Eagle, one of the largest birds to have ever existed, the Elephant Bird, and an armadillo relative that grew to be the size of a car. As well as examples of convergent evolution, such as the American Cheetah. And also examples of animals related to those still in the world but that lived in regions and climates not associated with the animals nowadays, and that were much larger or possessed different qualities + occupied different ecological niches.

So, yeah, there’s no focus on just 10 extinct animals of the last 100 years, but rather on the before as well. Enjoy the article.

10 Extinct Animals Of The Last 100 Years, & Before – List

Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis)

The Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) was a bright green parakeet that previous to the 20th century was found throughout most of what’s now the continental US — to be more particular, found all throughout the South, the Northeast, the Midwest, and the Plains States.
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Tags: 10 Extinct Animals Of The Last 100 Years List, Carolina Parakeet, Cave Hyena, Dimetrodon, Elephant Birds, European Lion, extinct animals, Extinction, Giant Short-Faced Bear, Glyptodonts, Haast's Eagle, Irish Elk, Jaguar
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Southern Cassowary (Casuarius Casuarius) — Bird, Attacks On Humans, Feet, & Pictures

November 14, 2016 in Animals & Insects

The Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) is not quite a dinosaur but it’s very likely the closest thing to one that you will ever see. Well, I suppose that you could consider it a dinosaur, but if so then it would be a dinosaur that’s quite distinct from the ones that linger in pop culture (or were in a way invented by it).

As the pictures show, the Southern Cassowary, also known as the Australian Cassowary, is quite a large bird — growing to be more than 6 feet tall (to at least 75 inches or 190 cm), and to weigh between 37 and 154 lbs (17 and 70 kilograms). Maximum weight is estimated to be 187 lbs (85 kilograms). Some females have been known to grow to as tall as 6’7 feet (2 meters). Females are notably larger than males, and possess a larger bill and casque (the crest looking thing on their heads).

A very notable behavior of the species is that it’s the male that raises the offspring, and incubates the eggs, rather than the females. The females are apparently not involved at all in the chick rearing after they drop off the eggs and head off to do the same elsewhere (female territories overlap those of several males).

Other notable qualities include: the ability to make extremely deep sounds (the lowest frequency bird-call known, and at the very lower limit of human hearing); the ability to run up to 31 mph (50 km/h) and to jump up to 5 feet (1.5 meters); and also the fact that they are very good swimmers, capable of crossing large rivers and also of swimming I the ocean.
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Tags: Australia, birds, cassowary, Casuarius casuarius, giant birds, Papua New Guinea, ratites, Southern cassowary
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Lichen Growth Patterns, Antarctica, & The Future Of The Anthropogenic World

November 14, 2016 in Geology & Climate, Humans, Plants

The lichen in the image above presents an interesting visual doesn’t it? Rapid growth outwards with death spreading from the origination point in the center as well, following at a regular pace behind the spread of new growth. Probably one of the most fundamental patterns in the universe, especially with regards to “life.”
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Tags: Antarctic, Antarctica, Anthropogenic, Climate change, Lichen, lichens
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Neanderthals & Denisovans — Who Were They? Comparison Of Evidence Against Pop-Culture Projection

November 6, 2016 in Fossils, Humans

Neanderthals. Since the term was first coined more than a century ago, it has often been used to refer to people of supposedly low intelligence and brusque manner. But is there any truth to these characterizations?

Were the so-called Neanderthals, that lived in Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Asia for possibly more than half a million years — back when the weather was, going by the evidence, periodically far more extreme than it now is, and when enormous and intelligent carnivores such as cave hyena, cave lions, and others, actively hunted people — truly stupid? (Cave hyena and cave lions were much larger and more numerous than their modern equivalents). What about the so-called Denisovans?

Would that even have been a possibility? If a modern human was to be plucked out of the highly insulated, and relatively predictable, modern world and put in the place of a neanderthal would they actually behave more “intelligently?” Would a modern human behave more intelligently than a neanderthal during a hunt? In a fight? In small-scale warfare?

The truth, as noted by many of those in relevant fields, is that the behaviors associated by most modern people with “intelligence” are cultural solutions, not individual/genetic ones. They’re solutions of specialization and hierarchy. Solutions based on agriculture, food surplus, professional armies, relatively static social and symbolic structures, and deep enculturation.

Solutions of domestication in other words.

While on the mass scale you could consider these solutions to be effective ones (that will depend on your opinion of mass deforestation, desertification, extinction, and anthropogenic climate change), they don’t truly relate to increased individual intelligence — just to a greater focusing on specialized knowledge, and participation in a larger system that one doesn’t actually have direct knowledge of. (And they seem to have the effect of decreasing a sense of personal responsibility for one’s actions, neighbors, and the wider world, as well.)
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Tags: Denisovan fossils, denisovan genome, Denisovans, mtDNA haplogroup X, Neanderthal ancestry, Neanderthal fossils, neanderthal genome, Neanderthals
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Denisovans — Fossils, Genetics, Artifacts, & Speculation

November 6, 2016 in Fossils, Humans

(This article is actually the second part of the Neanderthals & Denisovans — Who Were They? Comparison Of Evidence Against Pop-Culture Projection article, that had to be split because of length. Head over to that article for the preface and further information.)

The “Denisovans” receive their name from the Denisova Cave located in south-western Siberia, in the Altai Mountains. The cave itself has received its modern name owing to a Russian hermit by the name of Denis that lived there in the 1700s.

While the cave had been explored before, it wasn’t until 2008, when Michael Shunkov from the Russian Academy of Sciences and other Russian archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of Novosibirsk explored the cave, that hominid remains were found.

To be particular, in addition to artifacts, including a bracelet, the finger bone of a juvenile hominin was discovered. The artifacts were dated using radiocarbon and oxygen isotopes to sometime around 40,000 Before Present. A bone needle found at the site at a later point has been dated back to 50,000 BP — making it the oldest needle yet found anywhere in the world.
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Tags: Denisova, Denisova Cave, Denisovan fossils, Denisovan genetics, denisovan genome, Denisovans
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