Extinct Animals

By: Keiko Hirami

Chapter 1
Animals of the Past
Have you ever seen
a living dinosaur?
Of course not!
Dinosaurs are
extinct. They no
longer exist. All of
the dinosaurs died
out about 65 million
years ago. No one
really knows why.
Some scientists
think it was because
Earth s climate
changed.

Many other animals

are also extinct.
Some became extinct
in ancient times.
Other became extinct
less than 100 years
ago. Let s learn
about some of them.

Chapter 2
The Woolly
Mammoth
The woolly
mammoth looked
like an elephant.
But woolly
mammoths were
even bigger!
Like elephants,
woolly mammoths
had tusks and a
trunk. Unlike
elephants, they had
long, shaggy hair all
over their bodies.

Woolly mammoths lived

during the Ice Age. Their
long hair kept them warm.
They used their tusks to
scrape ice and snow off
plants they ate.
Prehistoric people hunted
mammoths for food. They
also used their bones to
make huts, tools, and
jewelry.

Woolly mammoths became

extinct around 10,000 years
ago. This may have happened
because Earth s climate
changed. Scientists believe
another valid theory is that
too many people were hunting
woolly mammoths.

Chapter 3
The Dodo
Have you ever heard
the saying, Dead as a
dodo? People say this
because the dodo is
extinct.
Dodos were big birds
that lived on the island
of Mauritius (MAWrish-uhs). They became
extinct more than 400
years ago.

Dodos had large legs,

short wings, and very
big beaks. Each one
was the size of a large
turkey. Dodos laid
their eggs on the
ground.
Dodos were unable to
fly or run. This made
them very easy to
catch. People who
landed on Mauritius
killed Dodos for food.

But hungry people

were only part of the
problem. In 1644,
people brought cats,
dogs, and pigs to
Mauritius. These
animals ate the dodos
and their eggs. By
1690, less than 50
years later, the dodo
bird was extinct.

Chapter 4
The Tasmanian Tiger
The animal nicknamed
the Tasmanian had
stripes like a tiger,
but it was not a tiger.
Its real name was
thylacine (THY-luhseen), and it looked a
bit like a dog.

Thousands of years ago

thylacines lived all over
Australia. Then wild dogs
called dingoes took over the
thylacines habitat.
Thylacines soon died out in
Australia.
There were no dingoes on
the island of Tasmania. So
thylacines survived there for
many more years.

But then people began

to cut down trees and
plants where thylacines
lived. They also hunted
them because they
were worried that
thylacines were killing
farm animals.
The last thylacine died
in Tasmania in 1936.
That is less than 100
years ago.

Chapter 5
Save Animals Today
Scientists confirm that
more animals may be
soon extinct. And once
animals are extinct,
they are gone forever.
Still, some scientists
are hopeful. They
believe that if we care
for our land, water, and
animals in the wild, all
living creatures will
have a better chance at
life.