Honestly, one of the worst things about liking cool animals is the burden of knowing you've missed out on most of them. Like, no offense to all the cool animals who exist in the present, but man, we have lost so much. Now, I'm not asking for much here. I

understand how silly it is to want dinosaurs to roam the earth after not being around for tens of millions of years. I will even compromise with the creatures who've endured and would go out with the Ice Age. But what really bugs me is the animals that are still

supposed to be around. Ancient humans really didn't know what they were missing, even though they believed in a world consisting of gods and monsters. Even in reality, the natural world around them was much more wondrous than it is in the modern world, and that

sucks. Want to get mad with me and go over all the cool things you and I didn't get to see? We'll hop on board and let's go back in time, although not as far as we usually do. One thing to think of is animals who are

still around but who have gone extinct in a region. A great example of this would be lions. Lions in the present are really thought of as one of, if not the, African animal, but for a long time the modern lion, *Panthera leo*, had a huge

range across the Old World. Not only did it rule throughout most of Africa, but also much of the Middle East, India, and parts of southwestern Europe. This, of course, is why lions show up many times in the folklore, mythology, and art of these cultures, even though now lions

are a continent away because in the villages of Mesopotamia or Greece it wasn't impossible to hear rumors of lions nearby in the forest or stealing farmer Joe's cattle. Personally, one of my favorite pieces of lion-centric artwork is this palace

relief from the Assyrian Empire showing a beautifully muscled, roaring lion being hunted. Of course, this art also highlights the main reason for the lion's decline: they are just so impressive to humans that our first instinct is to brutally murder them. It is because of excessive

hunting that these Eurasian lions would eventually disappear from the ancient world as well. The famous Greek historian Herodotus tells us the lions were relatively common in most of Greece in 480 BCE but were much less common by 300

BCE until finally vanishing from Greece by 100 BCE. The farther east you go, the longer lions survive. In most of the Near East, lions went extinct starting in the 10th century AD, yet they would still persist in some

remote locations. Lion numbers would continue to decrease with the rise of gunpowder and firearms, making it much easier to hunt them. And the final lions of the Near East would die out in the 1800s, with the last lion of Iraq being killed in 1918. In Iran,

lions would persist in the foothills of the mighty Zagros Mountain range where occasional sightings would happen throughout the early 1900s. And the last pride of lions would be hunted down in 1963. India is a similar story to the rest of

Asia and as gunpowder spread, line numbers dwindled, yet lions would actually remain in India until well, the present day. Yup, although it's not spoken of too much outside of India, there still exists in the Gir Forest the last Asian lions. These were only protected because the forest was the

private hunting reserves of Indian rulers who were kind enough not to slaughter all of them. The Asiatic lion differs in a few substantial ways from their African relatives. They are overall smaller than the African lion. The mane on the males is darker and less developed than that of African specimens.

Meanwhile, the tuft at the end of the tail is larger. Another odd difference is the fact that Asiatic lions have a flap of skin which runs along the belly, which an African lion lacks. Although this isn't really a scientific observation, but to me, Asiatic lions all look just a

bit beaten up and sad. I just want to send them a get well soon card. Of course, I would probably be pretty gloomy too if my kin were almost hunted to extinction. Some are not as lucky as these Eurasian lions. Equally as recognizable as the

lion is the elephant. Now, most people know that elephants are still found in Asia, specifically Southeast Asia, but there were many other subspecies of Asian elephant that have now gone completely extinct. Of these lost Asian elephants, the westernmost was the Syrian elephant, as

the name suggests, this pachyderm was found throughout Syria, as well as Mesopotamia and parts of the Persian Gulf. The other thing distinguishing it from modern relatives was size, measuring in at 3.5 meters at the shoulder. The

An average Syrian elephant would have been as tall as the largest ever Indian elephants. The Syrian elephant would seem to go extinct in their environment by the year 700 BCE, but it is possible they make one final appearance in history before completely vanishing.

If you know anything of ancient history, you might have heard of the general Hannibal, known as an ingenious tactician and the man who almost destroyed the Roman Republic. Maybe Hannibal's most memorable action was taking his army, which included several war elephants, through

the Alps. Of these war elephants, most of which were of the African species, possibly a smaller subspecies endemic to North Africa, who died out during Roman times, making them yet another example of a unique animal lost to time. One war elephant, Hannibal's personal

elephant, was named Cyrus and was described as larger and braver than average elephants, with a broken tusk. It is believed by some historians that this large, well-trained elephant was in fact from the Syrian subspecies, further supported by the fact that Cyrus translates

to the Syrian, although not completely confirmed. I think it would be a great footnote in history that the last Syrian elephant was a total badass in one of the most important wars of ancient history. On the other side of Asia, there was also a unique population of elephants in China.

While being one of the oldest civilizations on the planet, China is also one of its most ecologically diverse, with many species of large animals having been present in the country, including elephants. Nowadays, the few hundred Asian elephants of China are restricted to several parts

of the country and are actually on their way to making a recovery, but there's more to the Chinese elephant tale. Ancient art and archaeological work has confirmed that there was another population of elephants in northern China who have gone completely extinct. It was assumed for a long time that

these elephants were just another branch of the Asian elephants relegated to China. Yet, recent evidence may prove otherwise. Teeth from these elephants do not match those of the genus *Elephas*, as well. Artwork from ancient China shows elephants with two, well, scientists call them fingers, but I'm more inclined to call it

trunk nubs instead of the Asian elephant's singular nub. The teeth and two nubs instead match the extinct animal *Palaeoloxodon*, also known as the straight-tusked elephant. Besides their bulbous foreheads and long, straight tusks, *Palaeoloxodon* also differs

from regular elephants for being even more massive, dwarfing even African bush elephants. And one species was possibly the largest land mammal ever. Although completely not set in stone, the idea that these bizarre giant elephants were once thought of as another ice age animal lost long before civilization may

have existed alongside historic humanity would be as wondrous as mammoths living alongside the Egyptians. To actually reverse the pattern a bit, instead of animals who have gone extinct everywhere but Africa, here we have animals found everywhere else except Africa. That's right, bears!

It appears I can't stop talking about bears on this channel, but I swear it's all a big coincidence. And the, and the bears are not holding me hostage. Anyways, this bear is called the Atlas bear, named such because where it used to roam, the Atlas Mountains of North Africa.

If you're wondering how a big fuzzy bear would have lived in Africa, then you might not be too acquainted with the Atlas Mountains. It shares a pretty temperate climate with the rest of the Mediterranean, and the further you go up the mountains, the colder it gets.

In fact, it snows regularly near the mountain summits. Some of these pictures of the Atlas look similar to the Rockies over here, so it really isn't that unbelievable a bear could live in these African mountains. The bears themselves didn't differ too

much from surviving brown bears, which they are believed to be a subspecies of, although it is possible they might be their own separate species of ursine. The Atlas bear was brownish black with reddish orange fur on the underside. It was stockier than an average American

black bear with shorter claws and muzzles. So why did the Atlas bear die off? Well, like many other things in the Mediterranean world, the Romans really put them in a sticky situation. I will admit bears are cool, but the Romans thought they were cool enough to take

thousands away from the Atlas Mountains to fight for their entertainment in the Coliseum and other arenas around the Roman Empire. Atlas bears were imported, encaged, and starved in order to make them more desperate fighters, and then unleashed on some other animal or

Christian, but never to return to their mountains. The Romans' love for their blood sport bled the Atlas bear population dry. It would shamble on for many more centuries in greatly reduced numbers, and the final one would be hunted down and killed in the 19th century.

and now for maybe one of the more famous ancient animals lost to time, the aurochs, once found across Eurasia. Really strikes me as one of the greatest losses in terms of extinct animals. The fact these giants used to roam the wild lands

of Europe where nowadays the largest herbivore in most of Europe is a deer would be a spectacle. And the fact it is so interwoven in ancient human culture only to be snuffed out by modern times once more puts a damper on things.

To get into specifics, aurochs were large wild bovines who lived similar to most of its relatives. They would live in herds numbering no more than 30 members. In these herds, both sexes would fight and display for social status with others and during mating seasons males

would engage in deadly battles for the right to reproduce. Besides these sometimes fatal battles, an adult aurochs in Europe had nearly nothing to fear. A large aurochs could grow 1.8 meters at the shoulder and could weigh 700 to 1000 kilograms. Although more ancient aurochs

have been estimated to weigh an immense metric ton and a half. For comparison, the Eurasian brown bear weighs about 250 to 300 kilos. The only thing that could weigh up to an aurochs would have been a very large bull moose and wisents, or European bison.

Outside of Europe, it is possible adult aurochs would be slain by large predators like the tiger, but because of their huge size and menacing set of horns, a European aurochs might only be threatened by predators if it were sick or a calf, who are preyed

hunted by wolves and bears, unkillable herds of healthy oryx would have roamed Europe and been a key part in sustaining biodiversity. These grazers would have kept pockets of Europe free from the ever-encompassing forest, providing a habitat for many

plants and animals, to humanity as well. Oryx were invaluable. It's pretty hard not to notice, but cattle, arguably the most important domesticated animal, are descended from the wild aurochs. The two different types of cattle, the humped zebu and the taurine

cattle most are familiar with, were actually domesticated independently of each other, the former being bred from the Indian aurochs subspecies and the latter from the Eurasian variety. Ever since we tamed and bred those first aurochs, cattle have been a cornerstone of

civilization. Forget democracy or laws, did that stuff ever plow your fields or make milkshakes for you? Only with the help of our bovine friends could we have any of that. Culturally, oryx have always been revered by humans. They appear in our cave

paintings, figurines and other works of art. Caesar wrote of them as animals quote 'a little below the size of an elephant,' and the Romans would later feature them in their arenas. In Greek mythology, it is said Zeus took the form

of a bull, aurochs, during the creation of Europe. Of course, for how respected and necessary these animals were, they did eventually go extinct. The main cause for their extinction was, and tell me if you've heard this before, overhunting and loss of habitat to their domesticated

descendants along with the spread of various diseases due to contact with cattle, the oryx range would slowly grow smaller and smaller until the last few oryx lived in eastern Europe where they were exclusively hunted by royalty. The final aurochs died of natural causes

in Poland in the year 1627, and yet another amazing animal would be lost.  But there is hope for the aurochs because of oryx being extinct and European cattle farming becoming less popular, those unique areas of open pastures might disappear within Europe

along with all the diverse wildlife which call it home. A certain solution would involve bringing back the aurochs. The Dutch Taurus program aims to breed back the aurochs, or technically an animal very genetically and physically similar to the aurochs from certain breeds of

cattle. Their final hope is to leave these aurochs populations and let them be reclaimed by European nature to roam in free herds and support the open habitats they once had a hand in keeping clear of forest. So far, the program now has a few hundred

animals they are able to work with, and the final goal is to be completed in 20 years. So maybe in our lifetime, we will see the ancient aurochs return to Europe. Of course, there are many animals I did not mention who went extinct before modern times that ancient people may

have known about, but I wanted to keep this to animals that the ancient Eurasian world knew of. Still, even these more speculative ideas are fun to explore. Is it possible the ancient Romans heard tales of the giant elephant bird native to a mysterious far off African island?

Did the merchants of Timbuktu ever encounter the now long-gone quagga, the zebra relative native to South Africa? Could the people of the Indian Ocean know of the giant Haast's eagle of New Zealand and the moa it hunted? All fantastical speculation, but the

thought of it happening makes the ancient world seem that much more amazing. Once more, it sort of sucks all these creatures died out long before you and I could ever have seen them, but at least they existed for ancient man, where these fantastical animals only made the

world seem that much more wondrous. Well, the channel sort of blew up in between this and the last upload, so to all my new subscribers and viewers, welcome aboard. As you can see, I have a real love of history alongside my love for paleontology and zoology, so I

thought combining the two passions would make for a good video, and I hope it's received well. As always, thanks for the artwork, photos, and footage I used to make this, and thank you for watching. See ya

Extinct Animals of Ancient History

Extinct Animals of Ancient History

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