Bioparanoria

Most people are somewhat familiar with the fact that several mammalian species have gone extinct due to human activity over the past few centuries. However, it may be surprising to comprehend that the number of mammals lost recently goes well into the dozens. As a partial list of post-1500 CE mammalian extinctions , this page is a primer to the gap humanity has left in nature. There are few megafaunas here, with most species being on the smaller side. Rodents in particular are well represented. Still, the loss of a species of rat or mouse is just as much of a tragedy as that of more charismatic icons of extinction, such as sea cows or thylacines. Environmental conservation is about preserving all lifeforms, and the plight of small organisms is too often overlooked. Often, species here are extinct as the result of invasive predators or competitors, such as red foxes. Note too that many species originate on islands such as Madagascar or Samoa. Islands are fragile laboratories for cre...

 On the rarest of occasions there comes into existence a specific organism that can truly be said to be genetically one-of-a-kind, possessing a unique attribute or history that we can say with near confidence has never occurred before and might never again. All the more surprising is when this occurs despite what we had assumed to be impossible. This is the story of a wee elephant like none other, who stunned the zoological community with his mere existence. Chester Zoo in England, founded in 1931, has long been called one of the greatest zoological gardens on Earth, with an impressive plethora of exhibits and a world-class conservation program. Dozens of elephants have called the zoo home over the decades since the opening of the elephant exhibit in 1941. One of these was Motty, the only known hybrid being an Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) and an African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta Africana). As the two species are in different genera, it was presumed that the two could never pro...

The "mammoth" (or is it?) in the tomb of Rekhmire On many occasions, there have been times in which unusual animals are depicted in ancient artwork, often leading to lengthy conversation and debate in the zoological literature. While we can handwave these illustrations as being stylized or inaccurate in their renderings of fauna (the notion that ancient peoples didn’t have imaginations or bad artists is such an untrue and bizarre idea), there is as well the possibility that they are meant to show actual oddities of nature that are lost to time. Each instance should therefore be considered on a case-by-case basis. One famous example, the subject of today’s post, is of a figure seen on the tomb decorations of Rekhmire , a nobleman from the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt the time period in which the North African empire was at the height of its power and influence. Rekhmire was an extremely minor figure in the long history of Egypt, but his tomb was recovered in great preservatio...