Extinct Animals That Might Still Be Alive!

from monster sharks and dinosaurs to enormous prehistoric sloths and apes here a 13 extinct animals that might still be alive number 13 Japanese wolf it's also known as the Han tree wolf because it was endemic to that island among others in the Japanese archipelago it was a subspecies of grey wolf that was smaller than its relatives in North America and other parts of Asia the last of these animals was caught and killed in 1905 did you know these wolves had a long history of being hunted that was due to their behavior of preying on horses when rabies spread from dogs to the wolf population in the 18th century the infected animals gained a reputation as a man killers as a result Japan made killing wolves and national policy and they were thought to have been exterminated but sightings of them have been reported ever since their alleged extinction that's led many people to speculate if some of the animals might have managed to survive in the wild number 12 Megalodon in 2019 Australian fishermen found a huge mako shark head that weighed about 220 pounds 100 kilograms off the coast of Sydney that prompted speculation about what sort of sea beast could have killed the shark it didn't take long until someone named dropped Megalodon whenever there's a report of a monster shark the legendary creature is always considered as a suspect that's understandable since it was the original monster shark measuring more than 50 feet 15 meters it was about the size of a school bus and weighed some 75,000 pounds 34 metric tonnes with one of the most devastating bite forces ever it was powerful enough to take down whales a combination of climate change and diminishing food sources made them go extinct about three and a half million years ago then again with so many sightings of monster sharks maybe a few of them managed to survive tell us what you think in the comments number 11 Japanese river otters these marine mammals were once widespread throughout Japan but their numbers started dwindling in the 1930s that's when a combination of hunting and diminishing food sources push them to the point of near extinction the animals had essentially vanished by the 1970s in 2012 Japan declared the otters officially extinct but within a year of that declaration there were at least a dozen unverified sightings reported and in 2017 a creature resembling the Japanese river otter was caught on camera some sources think a population of them may still exist somewhere in the world number 10 Triceratops allegedly found in the Savannah region of Cameroon ago boo it's said to be roughly the size of an ox and is fierce enough to fight elephants for land nago boo is a regional word for rhino but this hoofed animal is said to have six horns from descriptions provided by pygmy locals the creature sounds like it could be a surviving ceratopsian or a group of big dinosaurs of which Triceratops is likely the best known there's one problem with that theory though ceratopsian fossils haven't been found in africa the pygmies did note the animals had become more difficult to locate due to a decline in their population could Triceratops have once existed in Africa number 9 Caribbean monk seal the last confirmed sighting of these marine mammals occurred in 1952 they had inhabited the waters of their namesake Caribbean for a long time the first time they were documented by Europeans was in the late 15th century it didn't take long until the animals were hunted and killed for their meat skin and oil that aggressive tradition was continued by subsequent generations of whalers and fishermen they were driven into extinction by over hunting habitat destruction and the animals docile nature their lack of flight instinct made it easy for humans to kill them they've been declared officially extinct since 2008 but unconfirmed sightings of the seals have still persisted over the years number eight megatherium imagine a ground sloth about the size of an elephant and that gives you a good idea of Megatherium the prehistoric beasts measured about 20 feet 6 meters from head to tail and weighed some eight thousand eight hundred pounds four metric tons it was among the largest known terrestrial mammals that ever walked the planet and it inhabited South America until some 10,000 years ago in the scope of history that's not a long time so maybe it's somehow managed to survive to the modern day in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil and Bolivia there's a strange bipedal creature that allegedly stands ten feet tall three meters and is known as the mapinguari it is said to have enormous backward-facing claws and a mouth in its stomach area that emits a foul stench its claws match up and the mouth on the mapinguari is belly might be comparable to a scent glands the mini sloths possess hundreds of eyewitness accounts of the creature have descriptions that remain remarkably consistent deep Megatherium somehow survived number seven ivory-billed woodpeckers one of the world's largest woodpeckers this species is native to the forests of southeastern u.s. and Cuba where using the present tense because these birds have not been declared officially extinct they're rarely seen with the last confirmed sighting in the 1940s but occasional reports and other evidence of their existence continues to appear into the 21st century most sources either describe the woodpeckers as critically endangered or probably extinct while they were always regarded as extremely rare the combination of logging and hunting devastated their populations in the late 19th century number six Bhaiji dolphins in Chinese Bhaiji means white fin dolphin but it was nicknamed the goddess of the Yangtze after the river in which it swam an estimated 6,000 individuals were alive in the 1950s but only a few hundred of them remained by the 1970s by the late 1990s only 13 were thought to survive in the wild decades of Chinese industrialization appropriated the Yangtze River for purposes of fishing transportation and hydroelectricity that resulted in the dolphins being endangered by industrial waste and becoming entangled in fishing nets after a 2006 expedition found no trace of the animals in the Yangtze they were declared functionally extinct due to their disappearance even so sightings of them are still reported and the World Wildlife Fund suggests the species might eventually be located and revived number 5 sauropods in the African bantery language mo quelle member translates as the one who stops the flow of rivers that would certainly apply to this huge beast which reportedly feasts on hippos it's been the focus of many expeditions all of which have returned with little more than secondhand accounts and mysterious tracks in the ground it is thought to inhabit swamps and pools in the People's Republic of Congo various accounts agree that it has an elongated neck and tail and it might be some sort of dinosaur when locals were shown the image of a sauropod they identified it as the elusive creature that would fit with its reported length of more than 30 feet 9 meters although the creature is usually silent and stays underwater it will emerge to eat or travel and you wouldn't want to get in their way they're said to overturn boats and bite the passengers to death but it wouldn't really fit sauropods because they were herbivores what do you think number four Plesiosaurus modern sightings of Nessie could date to the 19th century that's when an unidentified creature was described as wriggling in the water but the earliest report of a lake monster dates to 565 AD when an Irish monk allegedly encountered it sightings have persisted into the 21st century but there's still no consensus as to what Nessie might be well some evidence suggests there's a large eel living in the lake the most common explanation for Nessie is a plesiosaur that time for god those were marine reptiles that could weigh more than 4,000 pounds 1815 kilograms and measures some 45 feet long or 14 meters they would have had the long neck that is one of Massey's distinguishing traits is that enough to convince you that plesiosaurs exists today number three Pinta island taught us there was a species of tortoise found on Ecuador's Pinta island and located within the Galapagos Archipelago its population was exterminated by hunters by the late 1800s and the animals were so rarely seen that they were presumed extinct by the mid 20th century but in 1971 a male's sole survivor was located nicknamed lonesome George his story made international headlines he was dubbed the world's rarest creature but scientists were unable to find a mate for him when George passed away in 2012 it seemed that his entire species died with him yet that same year several hybrid painted tortoises were discovered living on a nearby island those specimens were juveniles so that suggests there's still a pure painter tortoise still crawling around out there lonesome George helped his fellow reptiles escaped extinction once before will they managed the same trick again number two Tasmanian Tiger thylacine or the Tasmanian Tiger is one of the most recognized names on the list despite being called a tiger it wasn't related to any species of cat the nickname was a reference to the dark stripes on the animal's lower back this critter weighed about 70 pounds 32 kilograms and measured more than six feet long 1.9 meters that made it one of the largest carnivorous marsupials known to date in addition to Tasmania thylacine also occurred on the Australian mainland and in New Guinea their extinction has been linked to several factors including disease habitat destruction and bounty hunting the last known specimen died at tasmania's Hobart Zoo in 1936 even so unverified reports of thylacine sightings have been reported as recently as 2019 did the marsupials somehow survive number one Gigantopithecus this was literally a big Abe and it was bigger than a polar bear standing nearly ten feet tall three meters and weighing some 1,200 pounds 544 kilos it was one of the largest apes that ever existed paleontologists say it would have gone extinct about 100,000 years ago that places it in roughly the same time period a certain hominid species scientists haven't been able to determine an exact cause of extinction for the animal but it is conceivable that humanity played some role in their demise many cryptozoologists have speculated that sightings of huge hairy ape-like creatures like Bigfoot the Yeti or the Yowie might be connected to a population of Gigantopithecus that somehow survived through the ages let us know what you think in the comments thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed the video don't forget to hit that big red subscribe button and click the bell for notifications for a next exciting episode right here on epic wildlife

Channel: Epic Wildlife

Views: 74,180

Rating: 4.7064624 out of 5

Keywords: Extinct Animals, recently extinct animals, animals, top 10, extinct, extinction, top extinct animals, top ten extinct animals, creatures, prehistoric animals, animal extinction, endangered animals, extinct animals found alive, top 10 extinct animals, extinct animals caught on tape, endangered species, tasmanian tiger, biggest prehistoric animals, top 5, species, extinct creatures, facts, wildlife, animal, extinct species, amazing extinct animals, extinct animals brought back to life

Id: 1yN552tzNQU

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 20 2020