Animal Extinction

Many animals have disappeared during the long history of the earth. The most famous of these animals are dinosaurs. They lived on the earth tens of millions of years ago, long before humans came into being and their future seemed secure at that time. There were many different kinds of dinosaur and a number of them used to live in China. The eggs of twenty-five species have been found in Xixia County, Nanyang, Henan Province. Not long ago a rare new species of bird-like dinosaur was discovered in Chaoyang County, Liaoning Province. When scientists inspected the bones, they were surprised to find that these dinosaurs could not only run like the others but also climb trees. They learned this from the way the bones were joined together.

    Dinosaurs died out suddenly about 65 million years ago. Some scientists think it came after an unexpected incident when a huge rock from space hit the earth and put too much dust into the air. Others think the earth got too hot for the dinosaurs to live on any more. Nobody knows for sure why and how dinosaurs disappeared from the earth in such a short time.

    We know many other wild plants, animals, insects and birds have died out more recently. According to a UN report, some 844 animals and plants have disappeared in the last 500 years. The dodo is one of them. It lived on the Island of Mauritius and was a very friendly animal. Please listen to a story of the dodo and how it disappeared from the earth.