Extinct Animals of Ancient History

The world even just 500-600 years ago seems so magical and mysterious

Imagine being an average villager in Italy during Roman times and seeing soldiers riding elephants...

One of the saddest extinctions for me is the Tasmanian Tiger. Such a unique and majestic animal that died solely because of human activity

Im shocked that you didnt mention the Dwarf elephants of Cyprus and Crete, which were several species roughly between 4-7 feet tall. There are paintings possibly depicting people having them on leashes because they were so small. Just the concept of an elephant that was shorter than a child and lived in Europe alone is such a crazy concept to me. By far the saddest for me are the Moa, Haast's Eagle, and Elephant Bird. All of them died at roughly the same time in history and all of them were probably alive around the time of Christopher Columbus, which would begin the European exploration phase.

In ancient times, very, very few people travelled more than 20 miles from their birthplace. There were some high-end soldiers that travelled far, but even during the Roman Empire, the Roman soldiers posted in areas far from Rome were often the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of Roman soldiers who made the journey from Rome. That said, can you imagine the looks on the faces of the Roman City guards when Hannibal shows up riding a huge grey horse with a snake for a nose and two giant swords coming out of its face?

“The worst part of liking cool animals is knowing we missed out on most of them” is the best sentence ive ever heard

We always talk about extinct animals but extinct plants can often be more important since they might have some amazing medicinal property

It breaks my heart the library at Alexandria was burned. I can’t begin to imagine the immense volumes of ancient knowledge we lost. A tragedy.

You don’t really think of cows being intimidating… but to stumble upon a wild territorial giant bull would definitely be something to fear

i absolutely mourn the loss of dodos the most. they were such peaceful and timid creatures, having known no predators before humans, and i believe they wouldve been amazing companions. especially when you look at their only living relatives, the pigeon, and how incredibly sweet and friendly they can be. instead their timidness were taken advantage of and they were hunted for their, supposedly not even well tasting, meat. a shame.

Video Timestamps: 0:52 The Eurasian lion 3:54 The Syrian/Chinese elephant 7:28 The Atlas Bear 9:23 The auroch 14:01 Conclusion

This makes me really feel for our descendants. All the animals that are around today that we take for granted and see as "nothing special or out of the ordinary" - our descendants will be watching a video (or whatever future equivalent) just like this about our modern day animals that are no longer around in their time.

I used to think that European painters and sculptors had a difficult time getting their lions correct or done accurately, but then I found that their models were Barbary Lions. The classic British lion depictions associated with royalty are very similar to photographs of the Barbary Lion which survived in small pockets into the 20th century. Some say that there are still captive descendants. It was a very regal looking animal and the last known aerial photo of one in the Atlas Mtns looks very proud indeed. Look it up. Going back thousands of years - the Irish Elk had the largest antlers of any relative in the deer family and stood nearly 7 feet at the shoulder. Many good skeletal remains can be found in museums. Those antlers are spectacular!

"The world used to be a bigger place." "World's still the same. There's just less in it."

considering we’ve found human structures that are over 12000 years old, i can only imagine how life was back then with the animals still alive

Cave paintings in France include hyenas and rhinos, different types of big cats. Amazing that they ever lived that far north.

The Maori actually have stories about the 'haast eagle', and i read a paper a few years ago comparing the way the animal is coloured in stories from all over, and they find it consistent, as if the oral traditions are faithfully recording it and not drifting anywhere near as much as people would assume. Also some of the stories are about the eagles taking children, which is terrifying.

For me, the animal that I'm upset I never got to live to see was the Thylacine, it looks like such an interesting animal and it's so sad how it went extinct specifically because of us.

The lion thing is interesting. Cougars were native where I live but I can’t think of anyone who had ever seen one when I was growing up. Now that I’m in my 50’s they are starting to come back as they’ve been displaced once again from where they went after they were displaced from here. I’ve seen 7 so far in the last 3 years.

You should look into the animals in ancient Arabia it was apparently filled with deers in the desert which is really fascinating