Henry Harrold

3/13/2024

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Humans have been destroying habitats and causing other species to go extinct since we first arrived on the Earth. But some threatened species go into hiding – they seem to simply disappear. Some then reappear after being thought to be extinct for hundreds of years.

In the past 7 years there has been a multitude of animal species that have been believed to be extinct for as long as 200 years that were rediscovered in their natural habitats. Some animals such as the Sierra Leone Crab and Golden Mole have always been hard to find as their habitats are more extreme and harder for us to explore. We thought they were extinct previously, but now with increased technology and travel, they are back.

One of the animals rediscovered recently  is the Fagilide’s Trapdoor spider (Nemesia Berlandi), which was believed to have gone extinct in 1931. In 2011, Dr. Sergio Henriques discovered evidence that the trapdoor spider might still be active, but wanted more proof.  He planned an expedition to find them in 2021. During this expedition, Dr. Henriques found a spider that matched all of the descriptions of the trapdoor spider, but it has yet to be confirmed. It could be a subspecies or a mimic. It’s also possible that the Trapdoor spider was simply hiding this whole time.

Jackson’s Climbing salamander (Bolitoglossa Jacksoni), which had been believed to be extinct in 1975, was rediscovered in 2017. The salamander made its re-debut in 2014, appearing during an expedition by Paul Elias and Jeremy Jackson. However, the salamander was not confirmed to be alive until 2017, as simply one sighting cannot confirm the existence of a formerly extinct species – and further testing took time.

The Fernandina Galapagos tortoise ( Chelonoidis Phantasticus) had gone extinct in 1906, only to be rediscovered 113 years later in 2019. An expedition led by the Galapagos National Park Directorate and Galapagos Conservancy asked the question: is the tortoise really extinct? They had found a tortoise that matched all the details of the Fernandina Galapagos, but again, further testing is required.The tortoise was found translocated on a separate island from its original habitat, leading to its designation as extinct Perhaps it had 

simply moved islands and we were looking at the wrong address. Regardless,  the tortoise is still critically endangered.

On average, 55,000 to 73,000 species go extinct each year as a result of humans destroying more and more parts of the ecosystem, and as more and more species of animals are discovered, more and more go unappreciated. There are hundreds of species that are critically endangered because of the carelessness and intentional destruction of their habitats by  humans, and there are many more that have already gone extinct. It’s much more likely that these species are not just hiding.