elstaffe’s Reviews > A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals > Status Update

"In [1970] an experienced bushman deposited some equipment in a cave west of the Canning Stock Route in the Western Australian outback. He covered it with a tarpaulin, and when he returned several weeks later he found a large, attractive rodent living under it. "(139) hello, Lesser Stick-nest Rat

"... while these tiny creatures battled for life on land and in the vastness of the sea. What lessons we might have learned from its text we shall never know, for we tore up the missive almost at the moment we became aware of it." (117) oh ffs this is some real Garraty nonsense

"'Here's a letter for you, here's a letter for you, for you,' was how a visitor to [Guadalupe] described the cries of the parent [Guadalupe Storm-petrels]. The writing in that letter (if we allow the bird's DNA and behaviours to be viewed as such) have been shaped by one million or more years of evolutionary struggle ..." (117)

"The lonely lighthouse-keeper, David Lyaall, decided that he must have a cat, and over a year or so that solitary feline exterminated the entire species bracket [of the Stephens Island Wren]." (83) major takeaway from this book so far is do not ever have an outdoor cat. Also, don't land your boat on an island if you might have rats onboard.

"The terror skink (following page) is known from just a single specimen, collected somewhere on the Pacific island of New Caledonia by a certain Monsieur Balanza before 1876. Its teeth are long, sharp and curved, indicating that it was a predator, which is unusual for a large skink, most of which are omnivorous." (63-65) ok but that's 1 smug-ass looking skink. You can tell fr the look on its face that it's a predator

"Steller wrote that ... '[the sea cows] play the Venus game in June...The female flees—slowly—ahead of the male with constant detours...But when [she] tires of this mock fight and the vain enticements, she lies on her back, and the male completes intercourse in the human way.'" (7)