Species Ireland has Lost

Before the last Ice Age Ireland was connected by land-bridges, one to Scotland and one to Wales. The Irish Sea was a large freshwater lake and it’s reasonable to assume that the country’s wildlife was similar to Britain’s at the time. Yet between 7,500 and 12,000 years ago rising sea levels flooded the land-bridges and turned the lake into a sea and Ireland into an island. In the Pleistocene era Ireland was home to hairy mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses and the Megaloceros, the giant Irish deer, the largest deer that ever lived. Almost all these animals and birds, both the ones that are globally extinct and the ones that are extinct in Ireland, are no longer with us as a direct result of human persecution, hunting and habitat destruction.

Ireland’s biodiversity remains under threat and may still lose many more species. Here are some already considered extinct in Ireland in more recent times.

Top 10 Species that we already lost

× Gray Wolf
Grey wolf / Canis lupus - At their height, there were one thousand Canis lupus (grey wolves) in Ireland until the 1700s. Arriving at the end of the last Ice Age, the animals were often hunted, mainly by the upper classes. When British rule arrived in Ireland, the English lords targeted them for extermination, with Cromwell offering bounties for each wolf killed. It is recorded that the last wolf in Ireland was killed in 1786 in Ballydarton, Co. Carlow by a farmer called John Watson, whose sheep were being eaten. Around 2015, talks began regarding the re-introduction of wolves to the country, but whilst ecologically this would be good, it would not be good for the wolves themselves as the numbers being reintroduced would have to be small, extensively managed and their population artificially controlled due to lack of space.
Grey wolf / Canis lupus - At their height, there were one thousand Canis lupus (grey wolves) in Ireland until the 1700s. Arriving at the end of the last Ice Age, the animals were often hunted, mainly by the upper classes. When British rule arrived in Ireland, the English lords targeted them for extermination, with Cromwell offering bounties for each wolf killed. It is recorded that the last wolf in Ireland was killed in 1786 in Ballydarton, Co. Carlow by a farmer called John Watson, whose sheep were being eaten. Around 2015, talks began regarding the re-introduction of wolves to the country, but whilst ecologically this would be good, it would not be good for the wolves themselves as the numbers being reintroduced would have to be small, extensively managed and their population artificially controlled due to lack of space.</div>

Grey wolf

Corn bunting / Emberiza calandra - Whilst still breeding in Europe, the Corn Bunting bird was last recorded breeding in County Mayo in the 1990s. The cause for the decline and extinction has been blamed on changes in farming methods. The small corn bunting, which looks a little like a starling, has a diet that is mainly seeds and insects which they forage for on the ground. Insects are eaten in the summer. Seeds, especially from cereals, are eaten in the autumn and winter. They hop on the ground looking for food rather than walk. This means they need a habitat of mixed cropping farming, a method that fell out of use in Ireland and the loss of the species here.

Corn bunting

Hornet clearwing moth / Sesia apiformis - The largest of Ireland’s day-flying clearwing moths, the hornet moth mimics the warning colours of a wasp but lacks its pinched-in waist. The moth also mimics the flight of a hornet to look bigger and more aggressive and therefore protecting itself from predators. The larvae of this moth tunnel beneath the bark of the lower trunk and roots, particularly poplar trees, and it has been suggested that the moth might be the cause of the decline in tree health in some areas of southern England. However, scientists suggest that the deterioration in the health of poplars in this region is not caused directly by the hornet clearwing larvae but by a combination of climate and perhaps human influences. The cause of the extinction of the species from Ireland remains unknown, but it was last seen in Ireland in 1946.

Hornet moth

Solitary bee / Nomada sheppardana - A tiny bee measuring under half a centimetre in length, this cleptoparasite nests with small Lasioglossum species and does not collect its own pollen. Although common in southern England, there is only one Irish record of it being seen in 1902. According to Biodiversity Ireland, there are 98 bee species in Ireland including the honeybee. Thirty percent of Irish bee species are threatened with extinction. Six species are critically endangered, 10 are endangered and 14 species are vulnerable. This decline in bees is a problem in Ireland but is also a global problem. It is expected that due to climate change it may reappear in Ireland.

Solitary bee

Meadow saxifrage / Saxifraga granulata - This perennial herb which produces fragrant white flowers between April and June was officially declared extinct in 2016 and was last seen in Co. Wicklow in 1985 and Co. Dublin in 1986. Pollinated by many insects, including including dagger flies, hoverflies and solitary bees, its extinction is said to have been caused by improvements in grasslands which saw a fall in moist but well-drained, often lightly grazed grasslands. It can still be found in Britain in unimproved pastures and hay meadows, and on grassy banks and less rarely on shaded river banks and in damp woodland. This species has also been lost in many parts of southern England.

Meadow saxifrage

Great Auk / Pinguinus impennis - Despite their superficial similarities, great auks were not closely related to penguins. Great auks were native to the Arctic and sub-Arctic and once numbered in the millions. Thanks to the art of taxidermy, it is possible to see the great auk at the Zoology Museum of Trinity College Dublin, one of only 18 examples in the world. These flightless birds were a convenient source of food and bait as they were so easily captured, particularly popular with sailors travelling to the Americas. Their fat, eggs, and feathers were also sold as commercial goods and it was overhunting threatened the species. The last birds were killed on the island of Eldey off the coast of Iceland in July 1844.

Great Auk

Holy grass / Hierochloe odorata - An aromatic grass native to northern Europe and North America, Holy grass was first found at two small areas either side of the Selshan Drain, Lough Neagh, a site of special scientific interest in 1946 by two amateur botanists. The grass, which flowers in April – May is used in herbal medicine and by the Poles to make vodka. When not in flower, holy grass is virtually impossible to differentiate from the other grasses amongst which it grows, but can be distinguished from other grasses with which it grows by the neat rounded shiny spikelets, each of which contains three tiny flowers. Holy grass was last recorded in 1992 and declared extinct in 2016.

Holy grass

Mountain ringlet / Erebia epiphron - This brown butterfly was sighted in Mayo and Sligo in the 19th century, but it is suggested that it was probably on the verge of extinction even then since it was last seen in 1901. Found on the higher slopes of mountains with Nardus grassland, it was said to fly only in bright sunshine. The small number of Mountain Ringlet specimens allegedly found in Ireland, plus some inaccuracies in their provenance, has caused contention as to the reliability of their authenticity, but there is not yet an alternative viewpoint. Unless a lucky lepidopterist locates an as-yet-undiscovered colony, we may never know the true story.

Mountain ringlet

Spiral Chalk-moss / Pterygoneurum lamellatum - Spiral Chalk-moss is one of 596 different species of moss recorded in Ireland, but 35 of these are now extinct. Recorded as being present in and around Dublin city during the mid-19th century, it grew on mud-capped stone walls, a habitat that has now disappeared. It was last recorded in Ireland in 1870. The species has been found in Greenland (1959) and more recently in Poland (2016). The increase in winter temperatures is suspected to be the cause of the expansion of Pterygoneurum lamellatum in Germany and it is hoped that the species will soon be found again in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Spiral Chalk-moss

Mud pond snail / Omphiscola glabra - The tall-spired, dull-coloured Mud pond snail can burrow into soft mud and usually found in nutrient-poor, sometimes temporary, aquatic habitats in lowland areas such as ditches, marshes and small ponds. Sightings had been confirmed Shelmaliere, west of Wexford town in 1979 which was wiped out a year later, also at Carrickavrantry, south of Waterford in 2009 by Roy Anderson & Stephen McCormack and one colony at Ballymacar, east of New Ross, County Wexford which was found by Geraldine Roche. Due to changes to agriculture drainage the habitat was lost which led to the extinction of the mud pond snail.

Mud pond snail

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