How are scientists able to say that a random species is extinct? Did they have to look everywhere?
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They can refer to the species as “extinct” when no living members of the species are known to remain anywhere. That doesn’t mean the species actually and truly is extinct, it just means that there is no available evidence to provide that it is not. Sometimes that’s easy – for example, large land-based animals like rhinos are easy to spot and count – and sometimes that’s hard because the creature is small such as an insect, or widespread, or living in a still-very-wild area.
Sometimes species that were thought to be extinct are rediscovered later on. Probably the best known example is the coelacanth, a large fish from the time of the dinosaurs that we found in the fossil record. It was thought to have been wiped out when the dinosaurs left… until they caught one in the 1930’s. Crazy looking fish too.
Others have their last remaining members captured and moved to zoos. Tasmanian wolves are an example here, there’s black-and-white footage of the last known one in captivity before the species was lost.
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