User blog:Rora Raro/5 Extinct Animals

So this blog is going to be a sequel (only gonna make two of these) to this one. Most of those animals went extinct millions or thousands of years ago. This blog will be about animals that died out during the 20th and 21st centuries.

'''1. Golden Toad'''



Golden Toads were tiny toads, reaching lengths of 5.5 cm or 2.2 inches. Golden Toads were found in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve, Northern Costa Rica. It was first reported in 1966 but was last seen, in 1989 in the Costa Rican forest of Monteverde. It's also known by other names such as the Monteverde Golden Toad, Orange Toad, and the Alajuela Toad.

'''2. Caribbean monk seal'''



The Caribbean monk seal was a seal native to the Caribbean islands. Columbus first sighted the animals in 1494 and called them "sea wolves." They could grow to a length of 8.4 feet, and weigh from 375 to 600 lbs. Due to overhunting for their oil and overfishing, would lead them to their extinction. It was last seen in 1952 and was declared extinct in 2008, after an exhaustive search that lasted for 5 years. There had been sightings of the seals by fishermen and divers in recent years, but expeditions to find this animal has not found anything.

'''3. Formosan clouded leopard'''



The Formosan clouded leopard was a clouded leopard subspecies that was endemic in Taiwan. It was first described in 1862 on the basis of a traded skin with an incomplete tail. Its fur color is pale to tawny, and it has large cloud-like markings on the shoulders and flanks with a few spots within the clouds. From 1997 to 2012, there were camera trapping studies. It showed, that there was no presence of a population, as such it was held extinct. But, there were sightings reported in the summer of 2018.

'''4. Pyrenean Ibex'''



The Pyrenean ibex is one of two extinct subspecies of the Spanish ibex. It was once diverse and lived across France and Spain, but in the early 1900s, its numbers had fallen to less than 100. The last Pyrenean ibex, a female named Celia, was found dead in northern Spain on Jan. 6, 2000, killed by a falling tree. Scientists took skin cells from the animal's ear and froze them in liquid nitrogen. In 2009 an ibex was cloned, making it the first species to become "unextinct." However, the clone died just 7 minutes later due to lung defects.

'''5. Xerces blue'''



The Xerces blue was first described in 1852 and was of interest to butterfly experts because of exhibited incredible variation in their wing patterns. The butterfly lived in the coastal sand dunes of San Francisco before being driven to extinction by loss of habitat due to urbanization. It was the first North American butterfly to become extinct as the result of human action. The Xerces blue was last seen in the wild in 1941.