Extinct animals in cave/rock art?

Adam Khor

Along with the venomous prehistoric snakes, my most recent obsession may be the idea of extinct animals depicted in cave paintings. Do you know of any? I think these are very important, a glimpse to the fleshed appearance of animals we would know otherwise only from their fragmented bones.

As far as I know, these are supossed to represent extinct creatures:

Genyornis (Australia):



Thylacoleo (Australia- it seems it had stripes, maybe we should start calling it marsupial tiger instead of lion?)



Palorchestes? Australia



Thylacyne? (Australia, around 6000 years old)




Supossed prehistoric bat species, Australia



Megaloceros? (France)



Auroch (France):



Cave lions (France)



Coelodonta (woolly rhino), France:







Cave bear, France:




Mammoth, France:




Spotted horses:





What other cave paintings depicting extinct animals are you aware of?

Adam Khor

A couple more (it seems there's a limit to how many pics one can upload in one post):(

Thylacyne?



Megaloceros





Hyena and leopard (extinct in Europe, at least)- interestingly, the "hyena" seems to have been originally intended as a cave bear, but then spots were added- I'm wondering if we should call it a hyena at all:



The controversial "unicorn" of Lascaux, which may represent an auroch or another, unidentified prehistoric animal, or according to some, it may be a fantastic creature.




Giant Buffalo (Algeria)- what catches the eye is that its horns seem to be ridged in a similar manner to those of the Asian water buffalo, suggesting that either the prehistoric creature had water buffalo-like horns, even though its usually classified as Pelorovis or Syncerus antiquus, or else water buffaloes lived in Africa once...

Galvasean

The bear/hyena makes me wonder if there could have been a spotted bear at some point? We have spotted dogs after all...

Adam Khor

Galvasean wrote: »

The bear/hyena makes me wonder if there could have been a spotted bear at some point? We have spotted dogs after all...

A spotted bear would be a sight to behold :O

Galvasean

If it had this colouration then certainly a juvenile could be mistaken fora hyena from a distance.

Adam Khor

Galvasean wrote: »

If it had this colouration then certainly a juvenile could be mistaken fora hyena from a distance.

Wut, is that dog for real?

Galvasean

Apparently so. He was spotted in India.
http://animalphotos.info/a/2007/12/22/unique-spotted-dog-seen-in-india/

Adam Khor

Very interesting...

Reading a bit on it, some people are asking if it may be a dog-hyena cross, which is ridiculous not only because hyenas are more related to cats than to dogs (and thus genetically incompatible and physically uncapable of mating and breeding with dogs) but also the hyenas in India have stripes, not spots, to begin with.

Rubecula

Galvasean wrote: »

Apparently so. He was spotted in India.
http://animalphotos.info/a/2007/12/22/unique-spotted-dog-seen-in-india/

If that is a pun it was well done.



Not sure I would want a bear that is camouflaged with spots around. If you see it it would already be too late. Especially if it was a short faced bear.

Galvasean

Rubecula wrote: »

If that is a pun it was well done.

steddyeddy

Not a cave painting but a roman mosiac of the extinct atlas bear which was Africa's last known bear.

Adam Khor

Interesting... which reminds me... these Egyptian reliefs may show an Atlas bear as well:



This one below is doubly interesting because it may depict not only a bear (Atlas bear?) but also a small elephant (behind). Some have suggested that the elephant may be a pygmy elephant like the ones that lived in Mediterranean islands until relatively recently. Others say it's merely a normal elephant calf (Egyptians knew both Asian and African elephants although they were considered exotic animals).



But perhaps my favorite Egyptian representation of a possible real extinct animal is this one:





Called the Benu, it was the inspiration for the phoenix legend; according to the myth it would return to nest in the temple of Ra the sun god and was considered a good omen.
The interesting thing is that, even though the phoenix is represented as eagle or pheasant-like today, the original Benu was obviously a heron, like depicted here. The fossil remains of a gigantic heron, much larger than today's Goliath herons, were found in the Arab Emirates, and classified as member of genus Ardea, which means it would look a lot, in terms of size and appearance, as the bird depicted in Egyptian art.
Some believe Ardea bennuides may have been a migratory bird that traveled to Egypt regularly during the early dynasties, before becoming so scarce that the later depictions of the bird were simply based on the more ancient, original ones.

Galvasean

If I remember correctly they also had white crows in ancient Egypt which were also considered good omens/Godly.

Adam Khor

Galvasean wrote: »

If I remember correctly they also had white crows in ancient Egypt which were also considered good omens/Godly.

Really? :O I once read a novel about ancient Egypt in which someone saw a white crow and took it to be an omen, but not a good one...

White crows, however, are likely to be albinos and not a different species/subspecies.

Their rarity is what would make them so highly revered, kinda like white tigers or white elephants (yes, they do exist).

Snotzenfartz

Adam Khor

Snotzenfartz wrote: »

This one always reminded me of Mononoke Hime's Shishigami:



Although the antlers look kind of inspired by Eucladoceros...