Talk:Lists of extinct animals

Birds and Dinosaurs

"Dinosaurs, and a large number of historical orders are extinct... It is, however, generally accepted that birds are descended from a subgroup of dinosaurs - hence dinosaurs are not extinct."

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Contradictory statements, I'm no expert but I'd say despite birds being descended from dinosaurs, they are Not dinosaurs. Therefore the latter are extinct. 194.168.3.18 14:23, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

From a cladistic point of view, birds are dinosaurs. However, this is completely irrelevant in this article that should only give some examples of extinct animals. Therefore I deleted the sentence. The facts are explained much better in the articles bird and dinosaur. -- Baldhur 15:54, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Europe

The section on Europe seems to have been deleted, will attempt to fix :p Grunners 02:44, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Global vs. regional/local extinctions

It would be useful to note that this page lists species that have gone extinct throughout their entire range, rather than those that are "extinct" in certain countries or regions. A separate page could be made to list these latter "regional extinctions."

Regional extinction is, in my opinion, a loaded term. I'd prefer to use 'loss of range', 'loss of habitat', etc. I don't mind adding 'substantial loss of range' when that is the case. But, it's like Mount Lemon's squirrels... AFAIK, they exist in other places...

~ender 2005-06-01 21:40:MST

Article assessment

Wikipedia:Article assessment is looking at extinct mammals from the week starting 20 February 2006 - please come along and help out with the submissions and assessments. violet/riga (t) 00:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Sadly the findings haven't been very good - most articles only scored around 6 out of 10. violet/riga (t) 00:08, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Indeed sad, but the articles can still be improved! So everyone feel free to do so. All help is welcome. Pmaas 15:59, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

They certainly can. Hopefully the comments at WP:AA will help with this. violet/riga (t) 16:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal "No longer considered extinct" and Lazerus taxon

It has been suggested by Biatch that the "No longer considered extinct" section be merged with Lazarus taxon. I agree with this merger. And because this list is of extinct animals, not living or rediscovered animals, I think it can be merged now. Peter Maas 07:43, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

General complaint

Considering that 99% of all species that ever existed have gone extinct (or so evolution scientists tell us), isn't this a rather stupid entry? How about List of Some Extinct Animals, with an intro explaining why a "List of extinct animals" is wacky...;)

Hey -- I'm not going to insist on it, but really... What's next... a "List of failed businesses" or a "List of words unspoken"???

I think it is not the same, although you can have you opinion of course. Then you can remove all lists! Because with the same reasonin--Tom Meijer 14:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)g as you stated, you could also create a "List of businesses" or a "list of spoken words", as there are lists of List of placental mammals, etc. New animals are still being discovered and named. Scientists believe there may be from 2 million to as many as 50 million kinds of animals alive today, but only about 1,5 million animals have been named and classified. This page cleary says at the top "This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness." I think that is enough. There are many lists on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists Peter Maas\^talk 12:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely with the former speaker. This kind of lists have no sense at all. The arguments of Peter Maas are rather silly. I visited the List of extinct animals of the Netherlands and added some comment on the discussion page (this comment is more or less included here). The scope of these lists is mixed, and that is why these are NOT good. Many of the species, especially (and indeed not only) insects lack a fossil record. Therefore, it is impossible to have any idea about the significance of any presence (what is meant is: observation!) or absence of a species in the modern flora and fauna. In the list(s) taxa are mentioned that have been observed in a certain region once, or during a certain perod (during the last c. 200 years, OK 500 years), but that have not been observed there anymore for some time during the 'recent' time. What is the significance of this knowledge? In many cases it is not sure at all if a certain species disappeared from the region: it simply has not been observed anymore. And that is not the same as 'disappeared'. Not observed anymore, but even if you can establish 'disappearance' from the region has nothing to do with extinction. It also has nothing to do with 'local extinction': you don't know the fossil record and can, therefore, not have a good judgement about the significance of presence/absence during only a few (dozens of) years.

I can see the use of lists of taxa that are threatened, and that should include taxa that have not been observed for a certain time. Here also, however, knowledge of the fossil record is a precondition of a good judgement of what is happening. This knowledge is hardly ever (!) taken into consideration by environmentalists and other people concerned with flora and fauna. Most are rather narrow minded and consider nature as being static: It was here... It is not here anymore... Something must be wrong!

To include (really) extinct species, that means species that have disappeared everywhere on the globe, in these lists, and thus mixed with 'not-anymore-observed' species is really not a good idea. These are very different categories. If you should like to have a lists with extinct taxa, in my opinion this produces rather arbitrary enumerations. To this aim a category is far more appropriate. The statement above the page: "This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness." is an understatement: "This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy any standard for completeness." should be more in agreement with reality. Thousands of taxa should be added to approach completeness if we include Neogene and Quaternary taxa alone. Not to speak of all older taxa... Nonsense lists in my opinion. An encyclopedia deserves better information--Tom Meijer 14:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The real value of the "List of X" pages in Wikipedia is not the list per se, but the cross referencing to other pages in the encyclopedia, allowing readers to find related items, and allowing editors to realize where holes exist. So in that sense, the the list is not of "extinct animals", but "extinct animals (mentioned in Wikipedia)". I'd say a "List of failed businesses" would be a good addition to Wikipedia - of course it wouldn't include all businesses that failed (WP:VERIFY and all that), but if the business (and the fact that it failed) already warrants inclusion into Wikipedia, why not? It would be a good reference for a person researching business failures. "List of words unspoken" is a nonsense list, as in order to meet the WP:VERIFY criteria, you would have to guess that the words have been spoken at some point. I guess my main thrust is that, if you apply the WP:VERIFY and WP:NOTE criteria to each list element, as opposed to the list as a whole, much of your incredulity should melt away. -- 14:23, 12 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.33.121.200 (talk)

Lament

It is hard to list every extinct animal, because so meany had been hunted or died of some other way. Most animals were killed by hunters, some legal and some not. Some were gone because of rainforst cut downs, and other habbats ruined. why do people do things like that!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.106.186 (talk) 19:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice wording

"This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it."

I wonder if I'm the only one who takes this as an admonition to go hunt some endangered animals. Agarvin (talk) 23:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)