Hawaii is not only the "endangered species capital of the world", but is also home to a great many extinct species. Of the extinctions that have been documented, many of the reasons for a species demise include human intervention and pervasive alien introductions. Ecosystem destruction, species displacement, competition for food resources, and hunting have decimated the native fauna and flora of the Hawaiian Islands since European contact (1778).

The lists on the pages from the links below are incomplete (we will never know all of the species that have gone extinct in Hawaii's recent history), but serve as a reference for those species that we do know have gone extinct during the last 200 years in the natural history of the Hawaiian Islands.

Birds -- 28 species

Snails -- 72 taxa

Insects --74 taxa

Plants -- 97 taxa

This page last revised 29 February 2008