busy
rix_scaedu. It also fills the "hunters" square in my 10-1-19 card for the Fall Festival Bingo."The Once-Were Animals"
Everyone can name
the famous ones -- the dodo
and the passenger pigeon,
the sabertooth tiger
and the mammoth.
Far fewer remember
the Tasmanian wolf
or the marsupial lion.
Some of these were
harmless, and even
missed, but other hunters
were more formidable.
The Terror Bird and
the Demon Duck of Doom
leave little to the imagination.
A parade of once-were animals
is a mixed bag of missed chances
and things better left in the past.
But what is present should remain so.
* * *
Notes:
The dodo and the passenger pigeon were definitely killed by humans.
The sabertooth tiger and the mammoth disappeared at the end of the last Ice Age, likely from a combination of climate change and humans.
The Tasmanian wolf was wiped out by introduced dingos and humans, while the marsupial lion may have disappeared due to climate change and humans.
The Terror Birds and Demon Ducks of Doom probably died out before humans, based on available fossil evidence, although that may be incomplete.
