by Mac Pike

Created on: September 05, 2009   Last Updated: February 13, 2010

The scope of extinction:

The word "extinction" is a somber one indeed for it signifies not merely the death of an individual plant or animal but rather the final termination of an entire species; with the moment of extinction classically defined as the death of the last representative of the type. We humans, cursed as we are with astoundingly overinflated egos tend to blame ourselves and each other for the demise of the worlds flora and fauna; the truth is that of all the species that ever lived on earth, more than

99.9% are now extinct. Almost all of these extinctions occurred prior to the appearance of recognizable hominids on planet earth.

Some historic close calls for all life forms on the planet:

A case could be made that had some of the more impressive mass extinctions of old been just a trifle more all-encompassing, none of us would be here today to debate the issue. Consider the K/T extinction of approximately 65 million years past that effectively ended the age of the dinosaurs. This same event also terminated 75% of all living species, plant and animal. It is not too great a stretch to visualize this event annihilating some small creature that became the mother of the human race.

Life on earth experienced an even closer call about 251 million years ago during the Permian - Triassic extinction, also known as the "Great Dying". This cataclysmic event extinguished 70% of all land species, including plants and insects as well as animals and a whopping 96% of all marine life. We don't know exactly what caused this horrific die off, but we can be reasonably certain it was not the misinformed endeavors of Homo sapiens.

The Dodo, habitat and appearance:

But what about Raphus cucullatus, the famous and extremely dead Dodo, late of Mauritius, a small and relatively remote island located in the Indian Ocean; can the demise of this dumpy, somewhat comical looking flightless relative of the pigeon be laid at the feet of modern man? The answer seems to be almost certainly, yes.

Mauritius is an island of some 800 square miles that lies roughly 1000 miles off the eastern coast of Africa, and about 560 miles off the eastern coast of Madagascar. It had been visited by wandering seafarers at least as early as the tenth century but no permanent human settlement had been known before the 17th century. The Dodo had arrived under its own power some millions of years previously looking very much like a modern pigeon or dove, to which it is most closely

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