A last glimpse of our lost animals
They are grainy and sometimes out of focus. And if they were of anything else, they’d probably long since have been thrown away. But these pictures are anything but ordinary. For they offer a glimpse of some truly remarkable creatures – now lost to the world forever.
From the passenger pigeon and the Tasmanian tiger to the exotically named Quagga, these animals are all now extinct. But the rare photographs shown here (sometimes only a single image remains) offer a fleeting last look at a species on the edge.
Now brought together in Lost Animals, a new book by Errol Fuller, the world’s foremost expert on vanished animals, they also offer a stark warning: life can be a very fragile thing.
A Caribbean monk seal at the New York Aquarium in 1910; Martha, the last passenger pigeon
‘Suddenly there burst forth a general cry of “Here they come!” The noise which they made, though yet distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea.’
Thus the famous bird painter and author John James Audubon (1785-1851) described the vast flocks of passenger pigeons that once swept across North America.
For at the turn of the 19th century, there may have been more passenger pigeons than any other bird on Earth. In one estimate – 40 per cent of the US bird population. But theirs is also a cautionary tale; one that warns that no creature is ever safe from the threat of extinction. For their numbers plummeted during the 19th century and the last wild bird was shot and artlessly stuff ed by a teenager in 1900. By 1910, a 25-year-old captive female, Martha, was the only passenger pigeon on the planet.
Over-hunting doubtless played its part, which accelerated in the 1870s. There are records, for example, of competitions where participants had to knock 20,000 out of the sky in order to take home a prize. Explanations for the species’ final demise, however, range from avian disease to mass drowning, but the most convincing interpretation is that the birds could only survive in the massive flocks they had once travelled in before their numbers diminished. What we do know is that Martha spent the last four years of her life alone, and after a few false alarms, was found dead on 1 September 1914.
Apart from the fact that the mamo was native to Hawaii and remarkably easy to catch, we know very little about this pretty little bird. Its feathers were certainly coveted. Approximately 80,000 were killed to make a cloak for Kamehemeha I, King of Hawaii at the beginning of the 19th century. It is on display today at the Bernice Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and suggests that hunting may have been responsible for the bird’s terminal decline.
Particularly desirable were the small number of distinctive yellow feathers on its plumage, and while it has been argued that these were removed without it being killed, it seems unlikely that the tiny bird would survive such an ordeal. The grainy, blurred image on the previous page, is the only picture taken of a mamo, seen here with Ted Wolstenholme on the flanks of the Mauna Loa volcano in April 1892. Wolstenholme (about whom little is known) and collector Henry Palmer had been sent to Hawaii by Walter Rothschild to collect bird specimens. Once there, Wolstenholme witnessed a native bird catcher snaring the creature. A diary entry reveals his awe at the bird’s beauty, and he seems to have been rather attached to it, feeding it and photographing it before returning to Palmer – who promptly killed and skinned it.
A female quagga at London Zoo (1870); Ted Wolstenholme with a mamo by the Mauna Loa volcano in 1892. It is the only picture of the bird
Officially, the last thylacine (a captive creature in a zoo) died in 1936. But a number of unverifi ed sightings leave open the tantalising possibility that a few still survive in the remotest regions of Tasmania. It is one of the world’s great mysteries.
Unfortunately, the chances are that the last wild Tasmanian tiger, as they are often called, died sometime in the mid 20th century. The large carnivores were once common in Australia and New Guinea. A mummified specimen was found in a cave on the border of South and Western Australia in 1966, and was carbon dated at 4,500 years old (although the accuracy of the procedure is in question). The mainland population in Australia was probably eliminated by dingoes, only hanging on in Tasmania by the time the first European settlers arrived.
They posed a threat to the colonists’ sheep, and soon there was a bounty on their head, which remained in place as their numbers dwindled. By 1900, the animals were rare but extremely popular with zoos, so photographic and cinematic evidence of them is plentiful. The thylacine on the previous page, a female, demonstrates the extraordinary mouth-gape of which these creatures were capable. There are hopes that DNA could in the future be extracted from museum specimens and used to recreate these dog-like marsupials.
Christopher Columbus and his men killed eight monk seals when they landed on an island to the south of the Dominican Republic in July 1494 – and so the slow, 400-year march towards their extinction began. The seals were certainly widely hunted for the oil in their bodies and their skins, and they were possibly eaten as well, although the majority of reports suggest their meat was rather unpleasant.
Named after the rolls of fat around their neck, which made them look similar to a monk in his robes, the seals have sometimes been mistakenly thought of as solitary creatures, but sightings of groups of up to 500 show this to be false. The seals came ashore only on isolated islands and the last reliable sighting of a colony was on a reef between Jamaica and Honduras in 1952. There are thought to be just two photos of the Caribbean monk seal – both taken at the New York Aquarium in 1910.
An article published that year in the Zoological Society Bulletin describes the remarkable speed of growth of two of the zoo’s young specimens. But captive seals didn’t tend to live long and many died within days. Two closely related species, the Mediterranean monk seal and the Hawaiian monk seal still survive, although both are endangered.
Recent research has suggested that the quagga is a race of plains zebra rather than a distinct species, resulting in an intense debate.
Despite this, the quagga’s image as a posterboy for extinction is likely to prevail. Its popularity is thanks to its distinctive stripes, which are limited to the head, neck, and front of its body, and its pithy name, derived from attempts to imitate its bark.
The animal was common in the 18th and 19th centuries in southern Africa, but was treated as a nuisance and hunted so intensively for its meat that the last wild quagga is thought to have been shot in the 1870s, more than a decade before the imposition of a hunting ban.
Only five photographs of the quagga are thought to exist, of a female who died in London Zoo, where she had lived for 21 years, in 1872. One is attributed to Frank Haes, and two were the work of Frederick York (who photographed the female quagga shown overleaf, during the summer of 1870); both specialised in producing photographs on stereoscopic cards. The skeleton of this specimen survives in the Peabody Museum at Yale University.
Lost Animals: Extinction And The Photographic Record, by Errol Fuller, is published by Bloomsbury, priced £25.
From the passenger pigeon and the Tasmanian tiger to the exotically named Quagga, these animals are all now extinct. But the rare photographs shown here (sometimes only a single image remains) offer a fleeting last look at a species on the edge.
Now brought together in Lost Animals, a new book by Errol Fuller, the world’s foremost expert on vanished animals, they also offer a stark warning: life can be a very fragile thing.
A Caribbean monk seal at the New York Aquarium in 1910; Martha, the last passenger pigeonPASSENGER PIGEON
Ectopistes migratorius‘Suddenly there burst forth a general cry of “Here they come!” The noise which they made, though yet distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea.’
Thus the famous bird painter and author John James Audubon (1785-1851) described the vast flocks of passenger pigeons that once swept across North America.
For at the turn of the 19th century, there may have been more passenger pigeons than any other bird on Earth. In one estimate – 40 per cent of the US bird population. But theirs is also a cautionary tale; one that warns that no creature is ever safe from the threat of extinction. For their numbers plummeted during the 19th century and the last wild bird was shot and artlessly stuff ed by a teenager in 1900. By 1910, a 25-year-old captive female, Martha, was the only passenger pigeon on the planet.
Over-hunting doubtless played its part, which accelerated in the 1870s. There are records, for example, of competitions where participants had to knock 20,000 out of the sky in order to take home a prize. Explanations for the species’ final demise, however, range from avian disease to mass drowning, but the most convincing interpretation is that the birds could only survive in the massive flocks they had once travelled in before their numbers diminished. What we do know is that Martha spent the last four years of her life alone, and after a few false alarms, was found dead on 1 September 1914.
MAMO
Drepanis pacificaApart from the fact that the mamo was native to Hawaii and remarkably easy to catch, we know very little about this pretty little bird. Its feathers were certainly coveted. Approximately 80,000 were killed to make a cloak for Kamehemeha I, King of Hawaii at the beginning of the 19th century. It is on display today at the Bernice Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and suggests that hunting may have been responsible for the bird’s terminal decline.
Particularly desirable were the small number of distinctive yellow feathers on its plumage, and while it has been argued that these were removed without it being killed, it seems unlikely that the tiny bird would survive such an ordeal. The grainy, blurred image on the previous page, is the only picture taken of a mamo, seen here with Ted Wolstenholme on the flanks of the Mauna Loa volcano in April 1892. Wolstenholme (about whom little is known) and collector Henry Palmer had been sent to Hawaii by Walter Rothschild to collect bird specimens. Once there, Wolstenholme witnessed a native bird catcher snaring the creature. A diary entry reveals his awe at the bird’s beauty, and he seems to have been rather attached to it, feeding it and photographing it before returning to Palmer – who promptly killed and skinned it.
A female quagga at London Zoo (1870); Ted Wolstenholme with a mamo by the Mauna Loa volcano in 1892. It is the only picture of the birdTHYLACINE
Thylacinus cynocephalusOfficially, the last thylacine (a captive creature in a zoo) died in 1936. But a number of unverifi ed sightings leave open the tantalising possibility that a few still survive in the remotest regions of Tasmania. It is one of the world’s great mysteries.
Unfortunately, the chances are that the last wild Tasmanian tiger, as they are often called, died sometime in the mid 20th century. The large carnivores were once common in Australia and New Guinea. A mummified specimen was found in a cave on the border of South and Western Australia in 1966, and was carbon dated at 4,500 years old (although the accuracy of the procedure is in question). The mainland population in Australia was probably eliminated by dingoes, only hanging on in Tasmania by the time the first European settlers arrived.
They posed a threat to the colonists’ sheep, and soon there was a bounty on their head, which remained in place as their numbers dwindled. By 1900, the animals were rare but extremely popular with zoos, so photographic and cinematic evidence of them is plentiful. The thylacine on the previous page, a female, demonstrates the extraordinary mouth-gape of which these creatures were capable. There are hopes that DNA could in the future be extracted from museum specimens and used to recreate these dog-like marsupials.
CARIBBEAN MONK SEAL
Monachus tropicalisChristopher Columbus and his men killed eight monk seals when they landed on an island to the south of the Dominican Republic in July 1494 – and so the slow, 400-year march towards their extinction began. The seals were certainly widely hunted for the oil in their bodies and their skins, and they were possibly eaten as well, although the majority of reports suggest their meat was rather unpleasant.
Named after the rolls of fat around their neck, which made them look similar to a monk in his robes, the seals have sometimes been mistakenly thought of as solitary creatures, but sightings of groups of up to 500 show this to be false. The seals came ashore only on isolated islands and the last reliable sighting of a colony was on a reef between Jamaica and Honduras in 1952. There are thought to be just two photos of the Caribbean monk seal – both taken at the New York Aquarium in 1910.
An article published that year in the Zoological Society Bulletin describes the remarkable speed of growth of two of the zoo’s young specimens. But captive seals didn’t tend to live long and many died within days. Two closely related species, the Mediterranean monk seal and the Hawaiian monk seal still survive, although both are endangered.
QUAGGA
Equus quagga quaggaRecent research has suggested that the quagga is a race of plains zebra rather than a distinct species, resulting in an intense debate.
Despite this, the quagga’s image as a posterboy for extinction is likely to prevail. Its popularity is thanks to its distinctive stripes, which are limited to the head, neck, and front of its body, and its pithy name, derived from attempts to imitate its bark.
The animal was common in the 18th and 19th centuries in southern Africa, but was treated as a nuisance and hunted so intensively for its meat that the last wild quagga is thought to have been shot in the 1870s, more than a decade before the imposition of a hunting ban.
Only five photographs of the quagga are thought to exist, of a female who died in London Zoo, where she had lived for 21 years, in 1872. One is attributed to Frank Haes, and two were the work of Frederick York (who photographed the female quagga shown overleaf, during the summer of 1870); both specialised in producing photographs on stereoscopic cards. The skeleton of this specimen survives in the Peabody Museum at Yale University.
Lost Animals: Extinction And The Photographic Record, by Errol Fuller, is published by Bloomsbury, priced £25.