Looking for a database of recently extinct species on public display

I’m really into recently extinct species, and I was wondering if there was a website that listed museums that had recently extinct species on public display. Would anyone else be interested in this or is it just me lol.

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There is one on extinct birds in NA. Let me see if I can find it.
Nevermind I missed the part about recently extinct.
I know many museums have extinct fauna on display. You might have to look into the museums in your area.

There is a local museum here that has on display the extinct birds in our state on display.

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What is your definition of “recent”? And how would anyone else know this? (In order to be able to list such exhibit specimens to this website you ask about).

Exhibit departments probably do not specify their exhibits, by species. Ours does not and in 125+ years it never has. I doubt (m)any do.

So this means people would have to visit, identify “recently extinct” examples, and then go onto this website and upload their observation.

Such a site could be created of course. A spin-off of iNaturalist for sightings of Museum exhibits, for example.

But the concept of “recent” will always be changing.

by recent I mean human caused, aka anything I can see taxidermied.

A lot aren’t going to be stuffed. Most recently extinct lemurs, for example, aren’t stuffed, but were driven to extinction by humans within the last 1000 year. The ones you’ll see stuffed will be those specifically killed by Europeans who enjoyed stuffing specimens and animal trophies.

Editing to add another thing: as I’m sure you know, most recently extinct species aren’t “charismatic megafauna.” They’re going to be things like spiders in vials, jarred freshwater mussels, and herbarium pages, which museums are less likely to put on display than Lonesome George and Martha.

really sucks that those lemurs weren’t taxidermied, and I’d be happy to see anything I have a list of all the extinct species I’ve seen lol

It really sucks the lemurs are dead.

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yeah, do we always have to destroy island ecosystems? think of the things (or don’t if it makes you sad) that were never documented because people didn’t care

It was indigenous people who hunted the lemurs to extinction, they didn’t have a tradition of stuffing everything they killed. I’m sorry, but I really care about conservation and I’d much rather focus on keeping species alive than collecting dead ones. I’m sure you don’t mean it, but the enthusiasm you’re showing about seeing extinct animals’ bodies is uncomfortable to read.

ah sorry. i didn’t mean to come off that way.

I do think of those. What makes it difficult is knowing that in many ways, caring is a privilege. I can care about moas because I live in a civilization where we have intensive agriculture producing ample food. (Of course, that comes with its own issues such as extensive habitat loss.) How can I judge the ancestral Maori when I have never lived under the conditions they did? And yet I do often feel judgmental; judgemental that, as you said, people didn’t care. “Moa” is the Polynesian word for chicken; these creatures that to us are magnificent wildlife, to them were just big, tasty chickens.

Not to me it isn’t. I understand. Without physical specimens, it can be hard to prove that there ever were such creatures. Thinking of the lost macaws of the Caribbean, the existence of the Cuban macaw is undisputed because there are existing museum skins; all the others have their doubters and critics because we have only descriptions and illustrations without specimens. I would much rather see these animals alive; but given that extinction is irreversible, seeing their preserved bodies, thus knowing for certain they once lived, is better than having no hard evidence.

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It’s the enthusiasm over seeing something recently killed. This feels like a Pokemon-type collection, but for human destruction of the world. I volunteer specifically to prevent things going extinct, so someone having a “death list”… Extinction is not fun. It’s not something to be enthusiastic about. It’s horrific.

Respectfully, I would like to point out that some taxidermy is very important to conservation. Of course, practices like trophy hunting are damaging and extremely unethical, but on the flip side, as @jasonhernandez74 pointed out, things such as study skins help scientists study many different aspects of a species ecology and biology. There was a taxidermy ethics thread I started a few years ago, if this is something you’d be interested in reading.

I think that for some people, it is interesting to see well preserved remains of species that are no longer alive. I think that this true for the OP.

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I’m just going to avoid the taxidermy thread because I’ve encountered people doing things like buying skins from fur farms, trapping sensitive species, sewing different species together to make “art”, and naming stuffed animal skins like toys in the past. This is not stuff I’m keen on. To me, there’s a big difference between a museum keeping a dead animal a trophy hunter shot in 1850 and a kid buying 20 fox skins to name “Sparkles” and “Susie” or buying an endangered bat mount to have as a spooky knick-knack, and that’s what I primarily associate taxidermy with these days on the internet (just look up “vulture culture” on Instagram). I’m sure that because these things may be legal (except the bat thing), many people think they’re ethical - and I’d rather avoid knowing who does.

I also think that’s off topic. What bothered me about this thread was the feeling that the poster would be excited if a species went extinct simple because they got to check another creature off the “recently extinct taxidermy” list, particularly given the lemur comment.

Yep. I would much rather see them alive but that isn’t really feasible. I’d love to here anyone talk about seeing extinct species, whether it being sightings or being able to see it before it went extinct.

I closely follow rewild’s lost species list in hopes of said animals being rediscovered, and I always get happy when one does, even if its not a animal. (I’ve never been into plants, but I understand their importance and would like to learn more about them)

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Not exactly a database, but The Grail Bird by Tim Gallagher may interest you. It discusses somewhat recent sightings of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

I’ve already read that lol, the ivory billed woodpecker is my favorite animal and I wish to see one alive one day, despite how unlikely that would be.

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