Haast's eagle is an extinct species of eagle that lived in the South Island of New Zealand, commonly accepted to be the pouākai of Māori mythology. It is the largest eagle known to have existed, with an estimated weight of 10–18 kilograms, compared to the next-largest and extant harpy eagle, at up to 9 kg (20 lb). Its massive size is explained as an evolutionary response to the size of its prey—the flightless moa—the largest of which could weigh 200 kg (440 lb). Haast's eagle became extinct around 1445, following the arrival of the Māori, who hunted moa to extinction, introduced the Polynesian rat, and destroyed large tracts of forest by fire.
Elephant birds are extinct flightless birds belonging to the order Aepyornithiformes that were native to the island of Madagascar. They are thought to have gone extinct around AD 1000, likely as a result of human activity. Elephant birds comprised three species, one in the genus Mullerornis, and two in Aepyornis.Aepyornis maximus is possibly the largest bird to have ever lived, with their eggs being the largest known for any amniote. Elephant birds are palaeognaths, and their closest living relatives are kiwi, suggesting that ratites did not diversify by vicariance during the breakup of Gondwana but instead convergently evolved flightlessness from ancestors that dispersed more recently by flying.
In paleontology, a Lazarus taxon is a taxon that disappears for one or more periods from the fossil record, only to appear again later. Likewise in conservation biology and ecology, it can refer to species or populations that were thought to be extinct, and are rediscovered. The term Lazarus taxon was coined by Karl W. Flessa and David Jablonski in 1983 and was then expanded by Jablonski in 1986. Paul Wignall and Michael Benton defined Lazarus taxa as, "At times of biotic crisis many taxa go extinct, but others only temporarily disappeared from the fossil record, often for intervals measured in millions of years, before reappearing unchanged". Earlier work also supports the concept though without using the name Lazarus taxon, like work by Christopher R. C. Paul.
The term Australian megafauna refers to the megafauna in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch. Most of these species became extinct during the latter half of the Pleistocene, and the roles of human and climatic factors in their extinction are contested.
Liang Bua is a limestone cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia, slightly north of the town of Ruteng in Manggarai Regency, East Nusa Tenggara. The cave demonstrated archaeological and paleontological potential in the 1950s and 1960s as described by the Dutch missionary and archaeologist Theodor L. Verhoeven.
Procoptodon is an extinct genus of giant short-faced (sthenurine) kangaroos that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch. P. goliah, the largest known kangaroo species that ever existed, stood at about 2 m (6.6 ft). They weighed about 200–240 kg (440–530 lb). Other members of the genus were smaller, however; Procoptodon gilli was the smallest of all of the sthenurine kangaroos, standing approximately 1 m tall.
Dromornis is a genus of large to enormous prehistoric birds native to Australia during the Oligocene to Pliocene epochs. The species were flightless, possessing greatly reduced wing structures but with large legs, similar to the modern ostrich or emu. They were likely to have been predominantly, if not exclusively, herbivorous browsers. The male of the largest species, Dromornis stirtoni, is a contender for the tallest and heaviest bird, and possibly exhibited aggressive territorial behaviour. They belong to the family Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds known as mihirungs.
Island gigantism, or insular gigantism, is a biological phenomenon in which the size of an animal species isolated on an island increases dramatically in comparison to its mainland relatives. Island gigantism is one aspect of the more general "island effect" or "Foster's rule", which posits that when mainland animals colonize islands, small species tend to evolve larger bodies, and large species tend to evolve smaller bodies. This is itself one aspect of the more general phenomenon of island syndrome which describes the differences in morphology, ecology, physiology and behaviour of insular species compared to their continental counterparts. Following the arrival of humans and associated introduced predators, many giant as well as other island endemics have become extinct. A similar size increase, as well as increased woodiness, has been observed in some insular plants such as the Mapou tree in Mauritius which is also known as the "Mauritian baobab" although it is member of the grape family (Vitaceae).
Aepyornis is an extinct genus of elephant bird formerly endemic to Madagascar. The genus had two species, the smaller A. hildebrandti and the larger A. maximus, which is possibly the largest bird ever to have lived. Its closest living relative is the New Zealand kiwi. They became extinct sometime around 1000 AD, probably as a result of human activity.
The Tenerife giant rat is an extinct species of rodent endemic to the island of Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, Spain. Many remains have been found during archeological digs. Most remains are from the Pleistocene. Radiocarbon dating has placed some of the finds in the late Pleistocene.
The cloud rats or cloudrunners are a tribe (Phloeomyini) of arboreal and nocturnal herbivorous rodents endemic to the cloud forests of the Philippines. They belong to the family Muridae and include five genera: Batomys, Carpomys, Crateromys, Musseromys, and Phloeomys. They range in size from as large as 50 cm (20 in) to as small as 74 mm (2.9 in). Cloud rats are threatened by habitat loss and illegal hunting. Several species are endangered or critically endangered.
Coryphomys is an extinct genus of rats, known from sub-fossils found on Timor. Its name is Greek for "top-of-the-head mouse" or "summit mouse".
Buhler's coryphomys is an extinct species of giant rat. It is known only from sub-fossil fragments that were found on Timor Island, Indonesia. It is related to the murines of New Guinea. Only subfossil fragments have been found to this day and were found in limestone caves in Indonesian West Timor. There is no precise information regarding the time of extinction or the cause of extinction.
The Timor and Wetar deciduous forests is a tropical dry forest ecoregion in Indonesia and East Timor. The ecoregion includes the islands of Timor, Wetar, Rote, Savu, and adjacent smaller islands.
Guy Graham Musser was an American zoologist. His main research was in the field of the rodent subfamily Murinae, in which he has described many new species.
Kairuku is an extinct genus of penguin. It contains three species, K. grebneffi, K. waitaki and K. waewaeroa. This taxon is known from bones from 27 MYA, from the Kokoamu Greensand Formation of New Zealand. It was historically referred to as Palaeeudyptes.
The Mangaia crake is an extinct species of flightless bird in the rail family, Rallidae. It was described in 1986 from subfossil bones of late Holocene age found in caves on the island of Mangaia, in the southern Cook Islands of East Polynesia. It was placed in the then-loosely circumscribed genus Porzana, but it almost certainly does not belong to Porzana proper as understood in modern times. Rather, it most likely was one of the crakes which are now separated as genus Zapornia. While the species survived for hundreds of years of Polynesian settlement, even despite the establishment of introduced predators, at some point in the last millennium Mangaia suffered an ecosystem collapse with far-reaching consequences, the extinction of "P." rua among them.
Hydromyini is a very large, diverse tribe of muroid rodents in the subfamily Murinae. They are the dominant native rodents in Australasia and one of only two native rodent groups there, the other being the R. fuscipes group of the genus Rattus in the tribe Rattini. They are also found in parts of Southeast Asia.
