Animals (2) + Extinction + Death

Millions of years ago a disrupted comet[i] collided with earth in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and wiped out the dinosaurs. The impact of the asteroid created intense radiation, hundreds of forest fires, severe volcanic activity, and formidable climate change. As a result, seventy-five percent of all animals and plants went extinct. This wasn’t the only mass-extinction our planet faced. There have been five mass-extinctions in total, wiping out vast chunks of plant and animal life. Some studies show that about eight million species have become extinct, with 150 species dying out every day.

When I think of all the long extinct animals, I feel frustrated. I feel something akin to missing out. When I’m looking forward to an event, to seeing friends or going on a trip, I often have a stress dream where I sleep through the event or get caught up doing something and miss the event. In those dreams I feel awful knowing I missed out having a great time with people I love or at a place I so badly wanted to be at. I feel the same sense of missing out when I think of extinct animals.

I have FoMo about extinct animals. Can I even call it FoMo? Isn’t that phrase used for fear of missing out something that will happen in the future, not something that’s long past? I don’t know, and that’s not the point of writing this. Really, I don’t have a point in writing this. I just really like animals and feel terrible about all the creatures I missed out on seeing and experiencing because I was born in 1999 and not sixty-six million years ago.

If anyone was alive sixty-six million years ago, it would have been a terrifying experience.[ii] Trying to avoid all the scariest and freakiest animals must have not made for a very fulfilling life.

All these animals are dead, and I will never see a photo of them, never know what they look like in person, never have pet them, or experienced anything with them. What did they look like? What did their skin or fur or feathers feel like? What did they smell like? What did they act like? Could I have looked into a woolly mammoth’s eyes without it charging at me? I can’t imagine putting my hand on an incredibly fat Steller’s sea cow and feeling its rubbery body. Is that even an accurate description of its skin? Imagine the magnificence and absolute terror of opening your eyes in the ocean and seeing the gigantic, 60-foot body of a megalodon shark. I wish I were alive to see a giant ground sloth, a hell pig, an Archelon turtle.

My best friend Austin studied environmental science in college, and we frequently send each other depictions of extinct animals[iii], trying to find the best, funniest, cutest, coolest looking prehistoric animals. I like the big, grotesque ones. The ones with bodies so big, legs so thick, wingspans and fins so wide you can’t believe they were once on earth. I get chills thinking about making eye contact with an elephant bird or a Shastasaurus.[iv] They look terrifying.

Some animals today look prehistoric, like they should have gone extinct a long time ago. One of these is the horseshoe crab with its life-saving blue blood and shiny, spiked carapace. To harvest the blood, scientists line up horseshoe crabs and strap them into place, inserting an IV like wire into them to suck their blood out into glass bottles. The whole process looks painful and lethal, but most horseshoe crabs live through the ordeal.[v] Looking at glass bottles of their semi-opaque, bright blue blood looks bizarre and sci-fi-esque. Austin said scientists use horseshoe blood to detect toxins in IV medications and new vaccines. They did it most recently with the covid-19 vaccines. Austin also said horseshoe crabs have an open circulatory system, their insides are repeatedly washed in blood. I wonder what that feels like, if it feels like anything at all.

I hope animals go to heaven. I want to expect them to be in heaven, but I feel uncertain about the whole notion. It would only truly be heaven to me if my dead pets were there. I can’t imagine them not being there. If they’re there, other dead animals would be, too. Is heaven full of animals? Do all animals go to heaven? Even spiders? Even fruit flies and horseshoe crabs? Albino rats? Shastasauruses? Or would heaven be reserved only for animals that somebody had an emotional connection to? Only animals with souls? I have so many questions about all of this, about the logistics of which creatures go to heaven and which don’t.

I’m not sure about the logistics of a lot of things. Why do certain creatures have open circulatory systems instead of systems of veins, capillaries, and arteries? Does everything eventually go extinct? If earth’s location in the Milky Way or in the universe as a whole was anywhere else, would the comet have still hit us and taken with it most of earth’s species?

Thinking about all those species lost makes me heart ache in such a weird way. We all have missed out on seeing thousands of beautiful flowers, unique leaves, and so many animals. So many things none of us can even conceive of, once living things whose fossils and bones haven’t even been discovered yet. All that death seems like such a great loss, such a tragedy. It’s one Big Death.

The other day, Eric and I found two dead baby birds, contorted horrifically on the sidewalk a block away from my house. We stared at them, not saying anything. I put a hand on my chest, shocked at the way their featherless, ugly bodies looked. I hoped they died when they hit the ground. I hoped they didn’t suffer.[vi]

[i] I know you’re thinking I meant to say asteroid, but I didn’t. Recent studies suggest that it was not an asteroid, but rather a disrupted comet that took out the dinosaurs. [ii] No human being was alive sixty-six million years ago, but some of the animal’s I’ve mentioned went extinct after human beings came around. Woolly mammoths and Steller’s sea cows are two of those examples. [iii] Today (June 5, 2021), he sent me pictures of Leptoptilos robustus, a giant stork. [iv] The name Shastasaurus sounds incredibly goofy. It reminds me of the soda company Shasta, which they stocked at the hospice I volunteered at. Every time I’d look at the word Shasta (or Shastasaurus), I remember a teacher I had in high school who’d always exclaim “Shasta!” in response to surprising information. [v] Only about 30% of them die from being bled like this, which was more than initially expected, but still less than 100%, so it’s kind of a win for horseshoe crabs. [vi] I feel inclined to explain why I ended this post in such an abrupt way. Death is really abrupt. Extinction is usually a bit gentler in its fading out. Also, I couldn’t think of an ending. I’ve been sitting on this post for a week now, and I’ve accepted that there is No Good Ending. So, the conclusion paragraph is a metaphor for death and there being no good ending is also a metaphor for death. Part of me wants to delete this one end note, but I think I’ll keep it. The whole concept of end notes is very compelling, and I might write more posts with end notes in them because I like it so much. Also, if you’re reading this end note, thank you for reading my silly little blog. It feels good to feel seen.