Animals Extinct in Last 1000 years

[WayneLigon]

Reading this CNN article about how catfish in Europe used to grow to 16 feet in length (though it doesn't say when), and remembering a poster that showed animal distribution in North America at the time of Columbus' landing (which showed ocelots in Alabama), I got to thinking....

Let's take it as a given that most people are using (or are going to use) as a D&D setting a land that roughly approximates Europe around about the year 1000 AD. What sorts of normal animals might they have that we, today, have never seen in those areas (or at all, if they are totally extinct)? Many animals had significantly larger ranges than they have today. What animals, unusual to us, might routinely be encountered by adventurers?

For example, I seem to remember lions and monkeys both having at one time a range very much larger and further north-reaching than they have now.

 

[der_kluge]

A little off-topic, but this reminded me of an idea that I had once where I was going to put in all the information for all the D&D monsters in the game SIMLIFE and see what the results were.

I imagine that it would take years of running on a high-end Pentium system to produce any kind of observable results. I remember back when that game came out, my friend had top of line 486, and it took 1 RL hour to produce a single "tic" of game time.

I also would imagine, that in a true ecological environment represented by the D&D monsters (no idea what monsters fall into a "canon" D&D environment), but I suspect that dragons would end up just eating everything, and taking over.

And before anyone starts talking about car-sized catfish that live in the rivers near them, it's largely an urban legend.

 

[CCamfield]

I believe there was a species of forest bison in Europe that was driven to extinction. The aurochs (big-ass wild cattle) were only wiped out in the 17th century.

The European lion became extinct around 100 AD.

As far as range goes, Britain used to have bears and wolves. Today, they have all been wiped out.

Whatever the Beast of Gevaudan was, there might have been more of them... (do a search on it by name, or for one version of the truth, watch Brotherhood of the Wolf )

 

[tetsujin28]

There was a species of parakeet native to the Northern United States and Canada that's no longer around. I seem to recall reading about it in an article on proto-Iroquois archaeology last night.

 

[A'koss]

Originally posted by die_kluge:

A little off-topic, but this reminded me of an idea that I had once where I was going to put in all the information for all the D&D monsters in the game SIMLIFE and see what the results were.

I've never heard of the game but it does sound like a neat experiment.

I also would imagine, that in a true ecological environment represented by the D&D monsters (no idea what monsters fall into a "canon" D&D environment), but I suspect that dragons would end up just eating everything, and taking over.

This is always a facinating topic and we had this very discussion not-so-long-ago. But while dragons may seem the obvious choice, they reproduce too slowly and take too long to reach their true potential. IMO... Intelligent, spawn-creating undead who aren't tied to a single locale (eg. wraiths) are the most likely to emerge as the dominate "race". A plague to end all plagues as it were.


Cheers,

A'koss.

 

[Vaxalon]

http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec03/b65lec03.htm#HISTORICAL EXTINCTION EVENTS

 

[Mark]

http://www.jncc.gov.uk/ProtectedSites/SACselection/species_of_interest.htm

http://member.biodiversity.org.uk/teddy/maps/extinctmammals.htm

http://www.petandwildlife.com/wolves/wolf_species.htm

http://website.lineone.net/~bunwin/first_extinction.htm

http://www.imcg.net/docum/redlists.htm

And you might try signing up for this database-

http://creo.amnh.org/datadwnld.html

Hope that helps!

 

[der_kluge]

Funny you should mention undead, A'koss. Friend of mine ran a solo campaign for a mutual friend many years back. This guy played a necromancer, and ended up taking over a ton, but through necromantic magic (spells they devised), he was able to get their crops to yield better than average returns, and the so the villagers all loved him, even though Paladins were always showing up trying to kill him.

The forest outside of town was filled with Shadows that he had created. And, as you can imagine, shadows beget more shadows. So, everything that the shadows killed - squirrels, rabbits, birds - everything, became shadows. So, in that sense, I can see that something like Shadows could easily take over a planet if not controlled in some way.

I mean, the things don't eat, so they never die, and they reproduce in a day, and they eat anything living, except plants. Pretty brutal.

 

[Tonguez]

I believe there was a species of forest bison in Europe that was driven to extinction. The aurochs (big-ass wild cattle) were only wiped out in the 17th century.

I've heard that the last herd of Aurochs was actually killed in Poland during WWII - but then again the accuracy is questionable.

Also add the Lions, Bears and Wolves, Giant Irish Elk and the Snakes of Ireland (chased out by St Patrick) and of course Wurms and Dragons

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Whatever the Beast of Gevaudan was, there might have been more of them... (do a search on it by name, or for one version of the truth, watch Brotherhood of the Wolf )

What's interesting, I think, is that there's this identification of the Beast as a hyena. The Beast was in the Lozere region in the south of France, and what's odd is that cave paintings in the nearby mountains (the Margerides, IIRC) depict hyenas, and we know that there were formerly cave hyenas in Europe. Neat.