More than 700 vertebrate species and nearly 600 invertebrate species are known or presumed extinct since the year 1500. That list includes 181 birds, 113 mammals, and 171 amphibians, along with hundreds of reptiles, fish, insects, and mollusks. Some of these losses happened centuries ago, while others were confirmed just this year. Here are the most notable animals that have disappeared, what drove them to extinction, and how fast the problem is accelerating.
Famous Extinctions Most People Recognize
The dodo is probably the most iconic extinct animal in the world. A flightless bird native to Mauritius, it was last confirmed alive in 1662, though statistical modeling places the actual extinction date closer to 1690. Sailors and the rats, dogs, and pigs they brought to the island wiped out a species that had never evolved to fear predators. The dodo became a lasting symbol of human-caused extinction, even lending its name to the phrase “gone the way of the dodo.”
The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, is another well-known loss. This striped, dog-like marsupial was the largest carnivorous marsupial of its time. The last known thylacine died on September 7, 1936, at a zoo in Hobart, Australia. Decades of bounty hunting, habitat destruction, and disease had reduced the population to nothing. It was officially declared extinct in 1986.
The passenger pigeon once darkened North American skies in flocks numbering in the billions. Industrial-scale hunting for cheap meat throughout the 1800s collapsed the population with stunning speed. The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
Steller’s sea cow offers one of the starkest timelines in extinction history. This massive marine mammal, related to manatees but far larger, was discovered by Europeans in 1741 near the remote Commander Islands in the North Pacific. Russian fur hunters used the slow, docile animals as a food source during voyages. By 1768, roughly 27 years after its discovery, the last sea cow had been killed.
Animals Declared Extinct Recently
Extinctions aren’t just historical. The IUCN Red List, the global authority on species status, continues to add newly confirmed losses. In 2025 alone, several species were formally listed as extinct. The slender-billed curlew, a migratory shorebird once found from Morocco to Siberia, was among them. The Christmas Island shrew, a small insectivore known only from a single Australian territory, was also confirmed gone.
Three Australian bandicoots, the marl, the southeastern striped bandicoot, and the Nullarbor barred bandicoot, were added to the extinct list as well. All three disappeared between the late 1800s and early 1900s, victims of habitat loss and predation by feral cats. Their formal listing was delayed for decades because confirming extinction requires exhaustive surveys and careful review.
A cone snail species from Cape Verde also made the list. Once common along a short stretch of coastline, it vanished as coastal development reshaped its habitat. Marine invertebrates like this rarely get public attention, but their losses reflect the same pressures hitting better-known animals.
The Three Main Drivers of Extinction
Animal extinctions overwhelmingly trace back to three human-caused problems: habitat destruction, overhunting or overharvesting, and the introduction of non-native species including diseases. These forces often work together. Island birds, for example, typically faced a combination of deforestation, hunting, and predation by introduced rats and cats all at once.
Habitat loss is the broadest driver. When forests are cleared for agriculture, wetlands drained for development, or coral reefs degraded by warming oceans, the species that depend on those ecosystems lose their ability to feed, shelter, and reproduce. Non-native species compound the damage. Rats, cats, pigs, goats, and invasive plants have devastated ecosystems on islands worldwide, where native animals evolved without those pressures. Avian malaria and avian pox, spread by introduced mosquitoes, wiped out numerous Hawaiian bird species that had no immunity.
Overhunting remains a factor even today, particularly for large-bodied animals. Steller’s sea cow, the passenger pigeon, and many whale species were hunted to or near extinction within decades of sustained commercial harvesting.
Which Animal Groups Are Hit Hardest
Amphibians are in the worst shape of any vertebrate group. A 2023 global assessment published in Nature found that 40.7% of the world’s amphibian species are now considered threatened, up from 37.9% in 1980. Frogs, salamanders, and caecilians face a unique combination of threats: habitat loss, a devastating fungal disease that has spread across continents, climate change altering the moisture levels they depend on, and pollution in the freshwater systems where many breed.
Birds and mammals get more attention, but their numbers are alarming too. Of the 711 vertebrate species known or presumed extinct since 1500, birds account for the largest share at 181 species. Island-dwelling birds have been especially vulnerable because they often evolved flightlessness or ground-nesting habits in the absence of mammalian predators.
Invertebrate losses are almost certainly undercounted. Nearly 600 invertebrate extinctions have been documented since 1500, but many invertebrate species were never formally described by scientists in the first place. Entire species of snails, insects, and crustaceans have likely vanished without anyone recording their existence.
How Fast Species Are Disappearing
The current rate of extinction is roughly 1,000 times higher than the natural “background” rate, which is the pace at which species would go extinct without human influence. If current trends continue, that multiplier could reach 10,000 times the background rate. These figures have led many scientists to describe the present era as a sixth mass extinction, comparable in scale (though not yet in total losses) to the five great extinction events in Earth’s geological past, including the one that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
What makes the current crisis different from past mass extinctions is speed and cause. Previous events were triggered by asteroid impacts, massive volcanic eruptions, or shifts in ocean chemistry playing out over thousands to millions of years. The current wave is driven almost entirely by one species, humans, and it’s unfolding over centuries rather than millennia.
Efforts to Bring Species Back
A handful of biotech companies are now working on “de-extinction,” using genetic engineering to recreate approximations of lost species. Colossal Biosciences, the most prominent, has announced projects targeting the woolly mammoth, the thylacine, the dodo, the dire wolf, and the moa. The approach typically involves editing the DNA of a close living relative to reintroduce traits from the extinct species. No de-extinction birth has occurred yet, and significant scientific hurdles remain, from creating viable embryos to establishing self-sustaining wild populations. Still, the projects have generated substantial funding and pushed forward techniques in genetic rescue that could help currently endangered species survive.