Causes of Extinction
- Habitat Destruction:
The clearing of forests and other habitats for human development or agriculture removes the homes and food sources for wildlife.
- Overhunting and Overexploitation:
Humans hunting species to extinction for food, sport, or other resources has been a significant factor.
- Climate Change:
Alterations in global climate patterns can drastically change habitats, making them unsuitable for many species to survive.
- Introduction of Invasive Species:
New species introduced to an environment can outcompete or prey on native species, disrupting the ecosystem.
- Pollution:Contamination of air, water, and soil can directly poison animals or degrade their habitats, leading to decline and extinction.
Extinct
Famous Animals
Dodos
The dodo went extinct on the island of Mauritius in less than 80 years after Dutch sailors arrived in 1598, due to a combination of human hunting, habitat destruction, and the introduction of invasive animals like rats, pigs, and monkeys that preyed on the dodo’s ground-laid eggs and competed for food. The dodo’s lack of fear towards humans, combined with its vulnerability as a flightless bird with no natural predators, made it an easy target for both hunters and the introduced animals.
Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus lived about 145 million years ago during the Jurassic period in what’s now Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. It was about the length of a bus and weighed almost 14,000 pounds. But this enormous animal had a brain that was only slightly larger than a walnut.Stegosaurus is a genus of herbivorous four-legged armored dinosaurs from the Late Jurassic, characterized by the distinctive kite-shaped upright plates along their backs and spikes on their tails
Blue whale
The blue whale is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of 29.9–30.5 m and weighing up to 190–200 t, it is the largest animal known to have ever existed
Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur. The type species Tyrannosaurus rex, often shortened to T. rex or colloquially t-rex, is one of the best represented theropods. It lived throughout what is now western North America, on what was then an island continent known as Laramidia.
What Big Animal Extanct?
Titanosaurs are the biggest land animals to have become extinct. These massive dinosaurs were huge, and Dreadnoughtus is possibly the largest of them all. There is only one known species of the Dreadnoughtus genus, Dreadnoughtus schrani.