Extinct Birds Lost in Recent Centuries

The dodo was a flightless relative of pigeons on Mauritius. It vanished in the seventeenth century, within decades of sustained European contact with the island. The bird pictured is a museum reconstruction in Singapore. At Oxford, surviving parts of the head and foot show details that early artists could only guess at.

Flocks once traveled across eastern North America in extraordinary numbers. Commercial hunting and forest clearance helped reduce the population drastically. Martha, the last known survivor, died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Her preserved body remains at the Smithsonian.

The great auk used its short wings underwater and bred on North Atlantic islands. Once its colonies were reduced, demand for rare specimens added more pressure. The last confirmed breeding pair was killed on Eldey, off Iceland, in 1844.

This green, yellow, and orange parakeet once lived across much of the eastern United States and gathered in flocks. The causes of its collapse are still debated. Incas, the last known captive, died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918. Later reports from the wild are harder to verify.

Adult males had black-and-white plumage and a broad bill, as the preserved bird pictured here shows. The breeding range and reasons for the duck’s disappearance remain uncertain. A Canadian status report identifies a bird taken around Long Island in 1875 as the last known specimen and treats an 1878 report cautiously.

In J. G. Keulemans’s illustration, the female behind the male has the longer, more curved bill. Huia feathers had deep importance to Māori, and later demand from collectors added pressure alongside forest loss. The last accepted sighting was in 1907.

Fossils show that this flightless wren once lived on both of New Zealand’s main islands. The last known population lived on Takapourewa, also called Stephens Island. The last known bird was brought in by a cat in 1895, and the growing feral cat population helped wipe out the wrens. The photograph shows a museum specimen.

A coastal subspecies of the greater prairie-chicken, the heath hen eventually survived only on Martha’s Vineyard. Archival footage shows the last surviving males, including the bird known as Booming Ben, who was last seen in 1932. The photograph here shows a male on the island around 1909.

The last surviving species of Hawaiian honeyeater had a song meant for two birds. Cornell’s archive lets you hear a lone male sing his part of the duet. The sound recording and this nineteenth-century illustration preserve very different details of the same species.

This dark-faced Hawaiian honeycreeper was identified by science in the 1970s in East Maui. The three known survivors occupied separate areas, which made breeding efforts difficult. The bird brought into care in 2004 died without producing young.

This small migratory warbler was associated with swampy thickets in the southeastern United States and wintered in Cuba. The photograph shows a living male. Habitat loss and the lack of recent credible records informed the 2023 federal decision to remove the species from the endangered species list because it was extinct.

The last known members of this duck lived in the subantarctic Auckland Islands, where the last specimen was taken in 1902. The museum mount pictured here shows its narrow, hooked bill. A bird collected in 1901 still held a small freshwater fish in its bill.

The koreke lived in open country and was presumed extinct by 1875. Hunting and introduced predators are among the pressures documented for the species. The surviving specimens are also useful for telling it apart from quail that were introduced to New Zealand later.

This red macaw lived on Cuba and the nearby Isle of Youth. Jacques Barraband’s watercolor, painted around 1800, shows the brilliant red, yellow, and blue preserved in museum skins. The last reliable records date from the nineteenth century, and the exact year of extinction is uncertain.