Toolache Wallaby

The fate of the Toolache Wallaby is probably one of the saddest things I've heard.

The attractive and social marsupials were endemic to the south eastern corner of Australia.
Although they had once been fairly common within their restricted range, by 1910 they were becoming increasingly rare. Again the usual suspects, habitat destruction, competition from introduced species as well as hunting (for sport and fur) contributed to its dwindling population.
By 1924 just a small population of 14 individuals existed and conservations  realised something which needed to be done . An  attempt  was made to round up the surviving population and transfer them to a sanctuary on Kangaroo Island. Tragically, it was this attempt to save them that ending up killing all but four of them, with the remainder dying or exhaustion or shock. 
Reports differ as to when the last individual died, some sources state 1937, others 1939 and yet others 1943. It is generally agreed that the last individual was a female. There are reports of sightings in 1970s but nothing concrete.
Surprisingly little is known about the animal. There is film footage of the last individual and an inventory of that can be found here.

http://archives.samuseum.sa.gov.au/sama1058/1058-01.htm
There is also a black and white phot here.

http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/collections/information-resources/archives/field-naturalists-society-of-south-australia-inc-sama-1058

I know the Toolache Wallaby is n't the only marsupial to have become extinct, but something about the combination of that forlorn looking photograph and the well meaning but tragic effort to conserve the species make for a very sad story.

Broad Billed Parrot

Quick, name an extinct bird native to Mauritius.
I imagine you're thinking of the dodo, possibly the most well known extinct bird there is and a symbol used to promote the protection of endangered species.
However, the dodo will feature in a later post. Today I'm featuring another of Mauritius's all too many extinct species, the broad billed parrot.
The broad billed parrot became extinct at roughly the same time as the dodo but isn't as well known or known about.
The bird is only really known from sketches and subfossil findings, the holotype having been lost. In the journals of the Dutch sailors who visited Mauritius in the 1580s, they were initially referred to as Indian Ravens and so when the subfossil of a mandible was discovered the connection wasn't made. They were officially described in 1866, about 200 years after they became extinct. Invasive species, deforestation and hunting were the likely causes of the birds demise.
The postcard is a copy of a plate from Rothschild's 1907 book Extinct Birds and was drawn by Danish naturalist Henrik Gronvold. The blue colour is now considered to be inaccurate, a 2015 translation of a report by Johannes Pretorius who stayed on Mauritius and described the birds said they were very beautifully coloured, with a red body and beak and blue head.

Trivia

The birds were considered rather bad tempered.

They were not completely flightless but were poor fliers.

Of the many parrot species native to the Mascerene Islands, only one, the echo parrot is still living.

The Woolly Mammoth

If you have seen the news recently then no doubt you've seen headlines that scientists are on the verge of bringing back the woolly mammoth from extinction.
In actual fact it would be closer to an elephant with mammoth traits but that doesn't sound as newsworthy.
I'm not sure what I feel about the project, there are other candidates for de-extinction which I'd be more interested in seeing but it does make interesting reading.

Even though the majority of the mammoth population died off around 10,000 years ago they do seem to fascinate people in way that more recent extinction don't. I have to admit that when I was a child I was scared of them, even though I knew they were extinct.
On to the postcard then, it's from 1978 from a set celebrating the work of the Siberian branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. This particular section being in the Siberian city of Yakutsk which now houses a Mammoth Museum.

I'm not sure which particular specimen this is, but looking at photos of the museum on line, it still seems to be there.

Trivia

At least two preserved mammoths were discovered by children, the Sopkarga mammoth, found in 2012 by an 11 year old boy and the Jarkov Mammoth in 1997 discovered by a 9 year old.

When the first mammoth skeleton was reassembled the tusks were put on the wrong sides.

The last woolly mammoths were to be found on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Circle surviving there until about 2000 BC.

The Carolina Parakeet

Tomorrow marks 99 years since  a bird named Incas died in a Cincinnati Zoo.

With his death ,the Caroline Parakeet, last spotted in the wild 8 years previously, ceased to be.

Incas was never photographed in life, in fact only one bird, a pet named Doodles is undoubtedly known to have been photographed and sadly the photograph is in black and white.

The bird had a wide range from New York to Colorado and was quite abundant in the early half of the 19th century, but its decline had already begun my the 1860s.

The usual suspects were the cause of extinction, namely humankind. Deforestation and hunting being the prime causes.

The card below is a postcard version of a print from John James Audubon's famous and beautiful "The Birds of America" which I've been lucky enough to see a copy of in Liverpool's Central  Library.


Trivia

The bird had the most northerly range of any parrot.

They were thought to be poisonous as cats died after eating them.

They could live up to 35 years in captivity.

They are one of  at least six extinct species of bird in Audubon's Birds of America.

An Introduction

This is a sister blog to my postcards of a vanished world blog.

This time I'll be concentrating on the natural world.

There will be a few differences, firstly I won't just be showing postcards, there'll be stamps and anything else which takes my fancy too.

Secondly, the postcards won't be contemporary. You'll see what I mean when I start to blog.