24 February 2026

Extinct mammals on world list

Happy New Year to all!

I’m in the long process of getting my world mammal list in order, before adding it to the website. An enjoyable task revisiting old trips, though an exasperating process trying to make sense of fractional primate splits with poor geographic bounds (Kashmir Grey Langur, anyone?!)

One quirk I’ve spotted is that Jon’s current list excludes extinct species. I fully understand the desire to avoid including a long irrelevant list of long-EX species, but presumably no-one would object to listers adding in of any recently-EX species that we have seen? My personal interest is that I saw Christmas Island Pipistrelle before its demise.

Thanks for any thoughts!

John

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Post author

astrapia

Originally a birder, but always interested in mammals, and diversified my interests into all taxa during the pandemic – which makes prioritising trips difficult! Self-employed biodiversity consultant, largely now focused on reducing the impact of big development projects in Asia (wind power, solar, roads, etc.) Formerly worked for a number of conservation NGOs, including five years based in South-East Asia with BirdLife International and six years based in the US with Conservation International. 

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1 Comment

  • 24 February 2026
    Jon Hall

    I am sorry – just discovered this post that I hadn’t published. Not sure what happened. As you say I’ve removed long extinct species that no one alive has seen but removing the Christmas Island Pipistrelle was a mistake on my part. I will put it back in a couple of weeks. The Yangtze River Dolphin for instance is also still on the list as I know at least one person who has seen it. Having an extinct mammal on your list makes you part of a pretty exclusive club and in my view at least you absolutely should be able to count it not least because it helps keep the memory of that species alive.

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