Flightless, the great auk was like the penguin of the Northern Hemisphere, though from a completely different family. The great auk was almost twice the size of the similar-looking razorbill, which can still be found at coastal breeding sites around the UK. It is calculated there were over 13,000 bears in Britain 7,000 years ago. Brown bears would have been feeding on a range of large mammals including deer and bison, while eating berries, roots and plants during leaner times. They are thought to have gone extinct in the UK just over 1, 000 years ago gradual and persistent persecution, alongside the loss of its forest habitat, saw the brown bear disappear from our landscape forever. The brown bear was a common top predator alongside the wolf and lynx following the last ice age, after lions and hyenas had disappeared. The similarly named Irish elk was in fact a type of extinct huge deer that lived up until the end of the last ice age, 11, 700 years ago. Despite their success after the last glaciation, changes in the climate, vegetation, hunting and fragmentation of their environment, saw them disappear from the British landscape. The elk (or moose) was a common sight across Britain before disappearing 8,000 years ago, Sharing forests and woodland clearings with roe deer, aurochs, wolves and wild cats. Humans hunted them for meat and skins their huge antlers were used as tools such as pick axes. Unlike the lynx, the wolf survived in Britain for much longer, less reliant on the disappearing forests for cover and thrived on red deer which had adapted to the open Scottish moors. Despite our relationship with their ancestors, dogs, wolves were not tolerated and gradually killed off. In caves, remains of wolves suggest they were domesticated as early pets for protection and help during hunts. It feasted on a myriad of deer, aurochs, bison, saiga antelope and other mammals that thrived across the open grassland and woodlands thousands of years ago. Persecuted to extinction by 1760 in Britain, the wolf was a successful predator after the last ice age. As the lynx re-emerges across parts of Europe, our understanding of how the lynx disappeared in the UK may help determine whether one day it will return to our forests once again. Even as far back as medieval Britain, huge deforestation led to declining deer populations and nowhere for hunting lynx hide to hide combined with persecution the lynx slipped away from our countryside. Latest radiocarbon dating on lynx bones reveal they were still clinging on in northern Britain 1, 550 years ago. Found in Kent over 150 years ago, it is quite likely the apple bumblebee was an occasional visitor to Britain, on the edge of its range.Īfter the last ice age lynx were widespread across the UK, feeding on roe deer as well as Arctic hares, and the now British-extinct collared and Norway lemmings and northern vole. And despite their rarity here, abroad they feed on a range of flowers with queen bees particularly partial to red clover. Where they are found in greater abundance in mainland Europe they use a wider range of habitats such as marshes and woodland edge. The apple bumblebee loved sand dunes in the UK and was found at a handful of sites in Kent during 18 it has been extinct ever since. They died out just over 3, 500 years ago as hunting, farming and an increasing human population pushed them out. Although larger than modern-day cows, they were hunted and eaten by bears, wolves and people. They grazed on low-lying, open flat grassland, floodplains, birch woodland and even saltmarsh. As horses and reindeer disappeared from the landscape and moved into cooler environments, aurochs mixed with red deer, saiga antelopes, roe deer, wild boar and elk. They were the ancestors of modern cattle. After the last ice age aurochs, an ancient wild cow with huge curved horns, lived in low densities across Britain.
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