Animals Declared Extinct and Found Again We assume when animals become extinct and then are found years later and sometimes centuries later, they never really went extinct. I have to wonder if there were ever cases where they were all extinct and somehow were reborn again? How would we ever know? Finding extinct animals living is not as rare as one would think. I am not saying it happens all the time, but I am saying just because an animal is declared to be extinct doesn’t always mean it really is. The earth is a big place and the oceans account for about 70 percent, making it even harder to know if a fish is declared extinct, if it really is. The ancient tilefish was thought to have been extinct and just another ancient fossil, but that all changed in 1879 when it was discovered alive. It is one of the very few animals that was again declared extinct in 1882 when a huge die off ,had them declared extinct again. Then it happened, in 1910 huge numbers of them were caught. This just proves the ocean is too large to be sure something in it is extinct. There is an animal which resembles a pig, but is not a pig but is the Chacoan a species of peccary. The way we knew it existed was from the fossil record. It was thought to have been extinct. In 1975 it was seen alive and well in Paraguay. This is one of the reasons the sightings of pterodactyls, which come up every once in a while, might be accurate. Today there are believed to be over 3,000 Chacoans alive. Even insects which have been declared extinct have returned. One is the Lord Howe stick. It has other names such as the Land Lobster and others. It was declared extinct in 1930. When researchers went to Australia and to Lord Howe Island, they found about 30 of these insects making them the rarest insect in the world. One has to wonder if there are other isolated islands where others might be living. When we think of Australia, it is only natural to then think of New Zealand next. New Zealand has its own animals which have been declared extinct. One of those animals is the flightless bird known as the takahe. When what were thought to be the last four died in 1898, the animal was declared extinct. Then in 1948 a small colony of the birds was found. It is estimated there are 225 living near Lake Anau. There is an animal that lives in Cuba which had been thought to be extinct. It is the Cuban Solenodon. Picture a rat with a very long nose and you will have the picture of the Solenodon in your mind. The animal was very rare to start with. It was discovered in 1861 but no more were found from 1890 to 1974, thus the idea they were extinct. The Cubans named it Alejandrito. A fish named the Coelacanth was believed to have become extinct over 65 million years ago. In 1938 one was discovered. Can you imagine any creature having a linage that long? How did it beat evolution? The individual fish have lived to be 100 years old. What other fossil animals are we going to find that survived? Perhaps a dinosaur or two are hiding in some obscure mountain valley. The New Guinea Singing Dog was thought to be extinct. The dog gave off a howl combined with a strange song like sound. All the wild ones were thought to be extinct, but there were a few in zoos. It is said people still report hearing their song and evidence has been found showing the Highland Wild Dog of Papua, Indonesia is the same Singing Dog. I admit I have a soft spot for dogs, wild or not. We are still declaring animals extinct today and it seems like we are declaring more extinct than ever. There is a fish known as the houting, which was declared extinct in 2008, only to turn up again in large numbers. Maybe some scientists are too fast on the trigger to declare an animal species extinct sometimes. One animal some might say good riddance is a type of mouse. Yet the creature is very cute. It is known as the New Holland mouse. Amazingly, it quickly disappeared after its discovery in the mid-1800s. It wasn’t seen again until it reappeared in 1967. It was rediscovered again in Australia. Another animal which most people wouldn’t lose any sleep over going extinct was the Laotian Rock Rat. In 1996 the animal was discovered in a gruesome way. The bodies were discovered for sale in a Loas meat market. When scientists studied the animal, they were surprised to find it was related to ones only found in ancient fossils and which was thought to be extinct 11 million years ago. When we talk about insects some are thought of as more disgusting than others. One of these is the wood eating cockroach another Denison of Australia. It was thought to be extinct until it was found again hiding under a rock. Scientists thought in 1930 it was no longer. If anyone has been to Florida, they must have seen the abundance of geckos hanging off screens and fences. One species of gecko which was believed to be extinct was the New Caledonian Crested Gecko. It disappeared for well over 100 years and then was rediscovered in 1994. Maybe the reason they were not seen was they are nocturnal and live in the tops of trees. A cute small bird named the Large-Billed Reed-Warbler was thought to be extinct. What is interesting about this bird is only one specimen was found in 1867. Then in 2006, in Thailand, a bunch of them were found in the wild. Lastly, I would like to mention the La Palma giant lizard. It had been found on one of the Canary Islands. The belief was the lizard had been extinct for over 500 years. In 2007 it was found and now is classified as critically endangered. There are all sorts of reports of strange things being seen, which should not be around. If one takes the time, they can even find videos which claim to show dinosaurs today. They are all assumed to be hoaxes, but could any be real? It would only take one out of the bunch to completely change our minds about if dinosaurs still exist.
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