Gone

A Search for What Remains of the World's Extinct Creatures

New Hardback Illustrated

Postscript summary

Around the turn of 1800 the naturalist Georges Cuvier and fossil hunters Mary Anning and Gideon Mantell first proved that animals could go extinct. Fascinated by the phenomenon, Michael Blencowe travels the globe to visit the last known whereabouts and surviving museum specimens of 11 species killed off by humans within historical record. They include the great auk, the upland moa, Steller’s sea cow and, most famous of all, the dodo.

Product information

Publisher: Leaping Hare
Year: 2021
Format: Hardback
Pages: 192pp
Illustrated: Yes
Dimensions: 205x155mm
Condition: New
Weight: 0.6kg
ISBN: 9780711256750
Product code: 531407

Full publisher description

Dynamic naturalist Michael Blencowe has travelled the globe to uncover the fascinating backstories of eleven extinct animals, which he shares with charm and insight in Gone.

'Really, really well written' - CHRIS PACKHAM

Inspired by his childhood obsession with extinct species, Blencowe takes us around the globe - from the forests of New Zealand to the ferries of Finland, from the urban sprawl of San Francisco to an inflatable crocodile on Brighton's Widewater Lagoon. Spanning five centuries, from the last sighting of New Zealand's Upland Moa to the 2012 death of the Pinta Island Giant Tortoise, Lonesome George, his memoir is peppered with the accounts of the hunters and naturalists of the past as well as revealing conversations with the custodians of these totemic animals today.

Featuring striking artworks that resurrect these forgotten creatures, each chapter focuses on a different animal, revealing insights into their unique characteristics and habitats; the history of their discovery and just how and when they came to be lost to us.

Blencowe inspects the only known remains of a Huia egg at Te Papa, New Zealand; views hundreds of specimens of deceased Galapagos tortoises and Xerces Blue butterflies in the California Academy of Sciences; and pays his respects to the only soft tissue remains of the Dodo in the world. Warm, wry and thought-provoking, Gone shows that while each extinction story is different, all can inform how we live in the future. Discover and learn from the stories of the:

Great Auk. A majestic flightless seabird of the North Atlantic and the 'original penguin'.
Spectacled Cormorant. The 'ludicrous bird' from the remote islands of the Bering Sea.
Steller's Sea Cow. An incredible ten tonne dugong with skin as furrowed as oak bark.
Upland Moa. The improbable birds and the one-time rulers of New Zealand.
Huia. The unique bird with two beaks and twelve precious tail feathers.
South Island Kokako. The 'orange-wattled crow', New Zealand's elusive Grey Ghost.
Xerces Blue. The gossamer-winged butterfly of the San Francisco sand dunes.
Pinta Island Tortoise. The slow-moving, long-lived giant of the Galapagos Islands.
Dodo. The superstar of extinction.
Schomburgk's Deer. A mysterious deer from the wide floodplains of central Thailand.

Ivell's Sea Anemone. A see-through sea creature known only from southern England.

A modern must-read for anyone interested in protecting our earth and its incredible wildlife, Gone is an evocative call to conserve what we have before it is lost forever.

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