Map of AfricaThe quagga (Equus quagga quagga), extinct since 1883, was zebra-like in the front but more horse-like in the rear. A breeding program aims to create similar-looking animals, but these are not true quaggas.
Neolithicrock art indicates that the African bush elephant inhabited much of the Sahara desert and North Africa at the beginning of the Holocene, and Ancient authors wrote that it was present in the Atlas Mountains, the Red Sea coast, and Nubia until the first few centuries CE.[2] It was also present in much of Egypt, except for the Sinai Peninsula, during the Late Paleolithic or early Holocene.[3] However the validity of separate subspecies in Loxodonta africana has been called into question, including the purported North African subspecies L. a. pharaoensis.[2]
Known from, and described from a single specimen captured on March 20, 1927. The species is believed to be semiaquatic due to adaptations shared with aquatic rodents from South America that are not known in other African rodents. If this is correct, this is probably an extremely solitary species as similarly adapted rodents are, which increases the difficulty of detection. However the area where the original individual was captured has been also altered by extensive overgrazing by livestock, which may have caused its decline and extinction.[7][8]
Mummified remains from the beginning of the Ptolemaic Period at Quesna, Egypt indicate that it once occurred in the Nile Delta, where it no longer does, supporting a moister regional environment at the time.[11]
Lions existed throughout Egypt in ancient times.[3] The last lion in Libya was killed in 1700,[12] in Tunisia in 1891, in Morocco in 1942 on the Tizi-N'Tichka pass of the High Atlas, and in Algeria in 1943. There was an unconfirmed sighting of a lion by the passengers of a bus in a remote wooded area of the Béni Ourtilane District of Algeria in 1956.[13] Despite being the first subspecies named by Linnaeus in the 18th century, modern molecular studies indicate that there is not enough difference with the extant lions of India, western and central Africa to warrant separate subspecies status, and as a result the taxon P. l. leo is not extinct.[14]
Population of the southern lion (Panthera leo melanochaita)
South Africa
Last individual was killed in KwaZulu-Natal in 1865.[13] Though widely recognized as a subspecies since being named in 1842, modern molecular studies indicate that there is not enough difference with extant lions of southern and eastern Africa to warrant separate subspecies status, and as a result the taxon P. l. melanochaita is not extinct.[14]
Last recorded in 1996.[13] Though named as the subspecies P. p. panthera in 1777, it was later included in P. p. pardus on morphological and molecular grounds.[15]
Only African insular population of leopards. Subjected to a extermination campaign after the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, the last confirmed sighting happened in 1986.[13] Though named as the subspecies P. p. adersi in 1932, it was included in the African leopard P. p. pardus in 1996 on morphological grounds.[15] There was an unconfirmed recording of a leopard in Unguja in 2018.[13]
This subspecies was named after the second-hand description of a female killed in the Rif near Tétouan in 1834 and its pelt, which is now lost.[17] The presence of brown bears in Morocco and Algeria was confirmed with the finding of several bones ranging from the Pleistocene to 662-778 CE,[18] mostly in high mountains around 1200-2000 meters above sea level.[17] Bears were of similar size to the small southern populations of Spain, Italy, and the Middle East. Native knowledge of bears was also documented in Algeria in the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.[17]mtDNA studies revealed that two highly distinct lineages of bears existed in North Africa through the Holocene: one identical to Cantabrian brown bears from Spain, and another that was basal to all European brown bears.[c] The North African bear could have disappeared due to increased habitat fragmentation.[17]
Disappeared around 300 CE.[20] This subspecies is attributed a distribution in the Atlas region of northern Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, although E. africanus is also known from the Holocene of the Sahara,[21] Egypt,[3] and Arabia,[22] excluding the extant subspecies E. a. africanus and E. a. somaliensis from Sudan and the Horn of Africa.[21] North African rock art and Roman mosaics show animals with characteristic leg stripes and a shoulder stripe, often doubled, different from the extant subspecies. However, it's been claimed that the name E. a. atlanticus would be unavailable due to improper description of a type specimen.[23][24]Domestic donkeys have two different haplotypes, one shared with the Nubian wild ass, and another of unknown origin that is not found in the Somali wild ass. The presence of the Atlas wild ass in the Ancient world makes it a plausible source for the second haplotype.[21][25]
Most recent remains at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa were dated to 8120-7980 BCE. Described as the largest equid of the African Quaternary and an extreme hypsodont, its extinction is speculated to be related to the decline in the availability or productivity of grassland habitats since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum.[26] However, ancient DNA studies indicate that the giant Cape zebra is not a separate species, but a distinct lineage of the plains zebra (E. quagga).[27]
Considered possibly extinct as it has only been infrequently seen since it was sighted in Ethiopia's Barka Valley and Eritrea during the 1970s. The subspecies is threatened by hunting for food and traditional medicine, competition with livestock for vegetation and water, and possibly interbreeding with domestic donkeys.[20] Some haplotypes in domestic donkeys are also found in the Nubian wild ass, either suggesting that domestic donkeys are partially descended from the Nubian wild ass, or that there has been interbreeding between Nubian wild asses and feral donkeys.[21]
Though more known from the Pliocene and Pleistocene, it survived into the early Holocene of Morocco and Tunisia and is commonly depicted in North African rock art hunting scenes up to the Bronze Age. It was extremely similar to the northern white rhinoceros C. simum cottoni in size, proportions, and dentition, and has been treated as its direct ancestor, a subspecies (though cottoni is now recognized as a subspecies of C. simum itself), or synonymous with it.[18][29][30]
An investigation into the last known location in Cameroon in 2006 found abundant evidence of wildlife poaching and no sign of rhinoceroses except that faked by local rhinoceros monitors. There have been no sightings or other evidence afterward.[33]
The last four wild animals were sighted in 2006 and the last indirect sign of their presence was detected in 2007, both under an uptick of poaching in the region.[35] In 2009,[36] the last four captive rhinos were moved from the Safari Park Dvůr Králové in the Czech Republic to a private reserve in Kenya, outside of the subspecies's recent range, but the two males died without breeding. The last remaining individuals are a mother and a daughter and attempts at artificial insemination have been unsuccessful.[35]
Possibly calved in the Mediterranean in ancient times. Probable remains were found in Roman archaeological sites at Tetouan and Ceuta dated to 180-396 and 226-440 CE, respectively, and an individual was sighted off Algiers in 1888.[38] A calving area existed in Western Sahara in recent times, but was declared extinct in 1998.[39] The species is still present sporadically in Macaronesia, where it visits and possibly calves near the Açores[40] and Canary Islands.[41]
North Atlantic, Mediterranean, and northern Pacific Ocean
Possibly calved in the Mediterranean in ancient times. Remains were found in Tetouan dating to 71–245 CE.[38] A vagrant from the North Pacific population was seen off the coast of Namibia in May 2013.[42][43]
Deer, known as hnn in the Egyptian language, are depicted in art from the Predynastic to the Ptolemaic period, and remains of Persian fallow deer have been found in archaeological sites of the eastern Nile Delta dating mostly to the 14th-10th centuries BCE. However, the autochthonous nature of these animals is controversial, as is the presence of other deer species like red deer or chital in Ancient Egypt.[3][45][46]
Cattle, goats, antelopes, and others (family Bovidae)edit
Last animal in Tunisia was killed in 1902 near Tataouine, in Algeria south of the Chott Ech Chergui in the 1920s, and in Morocco in Missour in 1925.[48] The subspecies was also present in Egypt along the Nile and in the oases of the western desert[3] until the early Middle Ages.[48]
Wild populations are assumed to have disappeared c. 4000 BCE, though genetic evidence suggests that North African aurochs underwent indigenous domestication near the onset of the Holocene, and that some races of African cattle are descended from it.[26] Of these, the N'Dama, Kuri, and some varieties of West African Shorthorn descend exclusively from the African aurochs, without admixture from Eurasian cattle.[49] The aurochs possibly survived for longer in Egypt, disappearing from the upper Nile in the Predynastic period but surviving in the Delta (Buto) until the Roman era. Hunting, habitat modification for agriculture, and competition with domestic cattle may have caused its decrease in numbers and ultimate disappearance.[50]
Most recent remains at Colwinton Shelter, South Africa dated to 4360-4280 BCE. The extinction coincided with changes in vegetation leading to the replacement of grazing ungulates for browsers.[26]
Fossil evidence and rock art suggests that the species was more broadly spread around southern Africa in the Pleistocene and early Holocene, but its range contracted because of climate-driven vegetation change until it was reduced to just 4300 km2 east of Cape Town. It finally disappeared around 1800 CE as a result of hunting, competition with livestock, and habitat loss and fragmentation caused by agriculture.[26]
Widespread through the continent in the Pleistocene, it became restricted to North Africa in the Holocene and survived until 3060-2470 BCE. Increased aridification and competition with domestic cattle have both been suggested as causes of its extinction.[10]
Disappeared from the wild in 1968, being last seen in Western Sahara.[52] The first reintroduction program began in Senegal in 1984[53] and was followed by others in Morocco and Tunisia. The Tunisian project ended in failure with the death of the last animal in 2020.[52]
Between the Oum er Rbia and Sebou rivers of Morocco
Last recorded with certainty in the wild in the 1950s. It succumbed to habitat destruction and over-hunting. Reports of a captive population in the 1980s are unsubstantiated.[56]
Last recorded at Lakes Merzouga and Tamezguidat between 1987 and 1993. All Arabian bustard subspecies declined due to hunting and habitat destruction.[56]
Last recorded in Senegal between 1968 and 1981. Its decline was probably a result of overharvesting of intertidal invertebrates and disturbance by people, although predation by rats and cats has also been implicated.[57]
The species breeds in Central Asia (the steppes of northern Kazakhstan and southern Siberia) and winters in the Mediterranean area and south Arabia,[58] but has declined due to intense hunting in the wintering grounds and habitat destruction in the breeding grounds. Slender-billed curlews were regular visitors to Merja Zerga, Morocco until 1995.[56]
A bone found in El Harhoura 2, Morocco was dated to 5050-3850 BCE.[59] This is the second southernmost record of this species in the eastern Atlantic, after another bone from Madeira.[60] The species became extinct globally in 1852.[61]
Could have disappeared as a breeder from Morocco before 1950,[63] though two adult pairs were seen in Tassaoti, Oued Laou and the mouth of the Moulouya river in 1977. Vagrant juveniles still visit the northern part of the country from the Guadalquivirmarshes[64] and are sometimes killed in unprotected power lines.[63]
Last recorded in the wild in 2004, with an unconfirmed report in 2005. The species declined due to drought, chytridiomycosis, pesticide use in maize agriculture, and possibly other causes. Nevertheless, thousands exist in captivity and a reintroduction program began with large numbers in 2012.[69]
Known from a single individual collected c. 1937, it is presumed to have become extinct in the 1950s after the introduction of Tilapia and Haplochromis to the lake. However the validity of the species is doubtful and could be a hybrid of Barbus and Varicorhinus instead.[70]
Last recorded in 2001. The rivers it inhabited have been affected by pollution and damming, but the precise causes of extinction are poorly understood.[71]
^The source gives "11,700 calendar yr b2k (before CE 2000)". But "BP" means "before CE 1950". Therefore, the Holocene began 11,650 BP. Doing the math, that is c. 9700 BCE.
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