EXTINCT ATLAS / QUESTIONS

Extinct animals, answered.

Why did they disappear? Did we ever meet them? Follow the evidence behind the questions we ask about vanished life.

Extinction & survival

Why did the dodo go extinct?

Hunting, introduced animals and what the historical record can tell us.

Read the answer

Why did woolly mammoths go extinct?

Climate, human pressure and the last island populations.

Read the answer

What are some of the most recently extinct animals?

Explore recent losses, with last-record dates kept distinct from extinction dates.

Read the answer

What animals went extinct because of humans?

Well-documented examples include the passenger pigeon, great auk, dodo and thylacine. Human pressure took different forms: commercial hunting, collecting, deliberate persecution, habitat change and introduced animals. These histories are most useful when compared by cause, rather than presented as a list in which every species was simply hunted away.

Read the answer

Is the megalodon really extinct?

Yes. Evidence supports extinction around 3.6 million years ago, and no living megalodon has been scientifically confirmed. Unexplored ocean does not itself provide evidence that this particular shark survives.

Read the answer

When did the thylacine go extinct?

The last known captive thylacine died in Hobart on 7 September 1936. That is the best-known historical milestone, not a verified death date for the last wild animal. No surviving population has been conclusively demonstrated.

Read the answer

Humans & prehistoric life

Did humans live with mammoths?

Yes. People shared Ice Age landscapes with mammoths and sometimes hunted them. Archaeological sites and prehistoric art document that relationship. Some isolated mammoth populations survived until about 4,000 years ago. Sharing a time period, however, does not mean people encountered every population or caused every local extinction.

Read the answer

Did dinosaurs live with humans?

Humans never lived with non-avian dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus. Those dinosaurs disappeared about 66 million years ago, long before humans evolved. Birds are the surviving dinosaur lineage, however, so humans do live with dinosaurs in the scientific sense. The answer depends on whether the question includes birds.

Read the answer

Bringing species back

Can extinct animals be brought back?

Partly. Cloning can sometimes recover an individual from preserved cells, while breeding and gene editing can reconstruct selected traits. Neither achievement automatically restores an extinct species as a healthy, reproducing wild population.

Read the answer