27 Extinct animals of North America

This is an incomplete list of extinct animals of North America. This list covers only extinctions from the Holocene epoch, a geological period that extends from the present day back to about 10,000 radiocarbon years, approximately 11,430 ± 130 calendar years BP.

Archaeagnostus is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil marine arthropods, the trilobites. It lived from the terminal Toyonian to early Amgaian. Species belonging to this genus have been found in Eastern North America, Newfoundland, the Henson Gletscher Formation in Greenland, the Nekekit and Molodo Rivers in Eastern Siberia, and in Guizhou, China.

Bathydiscus is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil marine arthropods, the trilobites. It lived during the Botomian stage.

Bothriocidaris is an extinct genus of echinoid from the Ordovician. It grew to 6 inches (150 mm) in size and fed on plankton.

Calymene is a genus of trilobites in the order Phacopida that are found throughout North America, North Africa, and Europe in primarily Silurian outcrops. Calymene is closely related to Flexicalymene, and both genera are frequently found enrolled. Calymene trilobites are small, typically 2 cm in length. The cephalon is the widest part of the animal and the thorax usually has 13 segments.

Ceraurus is a genus of cheirurid trilobite of the middle and, much more rarely, the upper Ordovician. They are commonly found in strata of the lower Great Lakes region. These trilobites have eleven thoracic segments, a very small pygidia and long genal and pygidial spines.

Chelosphargis is an extinct genus of sea turtle from Upper Cretaceous of Alabama. Only one species has been described, Chelosphargis advena.

Desmostylus is an extinct genus of herbivorous mammal of the family Desmostylidae living from the Chattian stage of the Late Oligocene subepoch through the Late Miocene subepoch and in existence for approximately 21.2 million years .

Encrinites are a type of grain-supported bioclastic sedimentary rock in which all or most of the grains are crinoid ossicles. In older literature, the word is sometimes used to refer to individual fossil crinoids, but this usage is obsolete.

Eodelphis, from eo- plus [Di]delphis, thus meaning "very early opossum", is a genus of stagodont metatherians from the Late Cretaceous of North America, with distinctive crushing dentition. Named species include E. browni and the more advanced E. cutleri. Both come from the Late Campanian of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. Specimens are also known from the Judith River Formation of Montana. E. cutleri is related to the Maastrichtian genus Didelphodon as indicated by its enlarged premolars and more robust jaw. Eodelphis was probably an aquatic predator like its relative Didelphodon, and may have weighed about 0.6 kg (1.3 lb), making it one of the largest mammals of its time.

Eosalmo is a genus of extinct salmon which lived during the Eocene epoch.

Eusthenopteron is a genus of prehistoric sarcopterygian which has attained an iconic status from its close relationships to tetrapods. The name derives from two Greek stems—eustheno- "strength" and -pteron "wing" and thus "strongly developed fins". Early depictions of this animal show it emerging onto land; however, paleontologists now widely agree that it was a strictly aquatic animal. The genus Eusthenopteron is known from several species that lived during the Late Devonian period, about 385 million years ago. Eusthenopteron was first described by J. F. Whiteaves in 1881, as part of a large collection of fishes from Miguasha, Quebec. Some 2,000 Eusthenopteron specimens have been collected from Miguasha, one of which was the object of intensely detailed study and several papers from the 1940s to the 1990s by paleoichthyologist Erik Jarvik.

Gilbertsocrinus are an extinct genus of Paleozoic stalked crinoids.

Greenops is a mid-sized Devonian trilobite of the order Phacopida, subfamily Asteropyginae. They are mainly reported from the mid-Devonian Hamilton Group of upstate New York and southwestern Ontario. A similar-looking trilobite from Morocco is often mis-labelled Greenops. Greenops had schizocroidal eyes, large genal spines and short, sharp spines at the tip of each segment of the pygidium ("tail"). Greenops lived in warm, fairly deep water. In the Hamilton Group of New York, they are found with Phacops, Dipleura and Bellacartwrightia, a trilobite that resembles Greenops but has much larger pygidial spines. In Ontario, they are found in the Widder Formation, which outcrops at Arkona, where they are, by far, the dominant trilobite.

Isotelus is a genus of asaphid trilobites from the middle and upper Ordovician period, fairly common in the Northeastern United States, northwest Manitoba, southwestern Quebec and southeastern Ontario. One species, Isotelus rex, is currently the world's largest trilobite ever found as a complete fossil.

Kainops is a genus of trilobites from the family Phacopidae, order Phacopida. It can be distinguished from Paciphacops by the greater number of facets to the eye. The form of the furrow between the palpebral area and the palpebral lobe also distinguishes Kainops from the genera Paciphacops and Viaphacops.

Laccognathus is an extinct genus of amphibious lobe-finned fish from Europe and North America. They existed from the Middle Devonian to the Late Devonian. The name comes from Greek for 'pitted jaw'.

Mesonacis is an extinct genus of trilobite that lived during the Botomian, found in North-America, and the United Kingdom. Some of the species now regarded part of Mesonacis, have previously been assigned to Angustolenellus or Olenellus (Angustolenellus). Angustolenellus is now regarded a junior synonym of Mesonacis.

Myriacantherpestes is an extinct genus of spiny millipedes from the Pennsylvanian subperiod of the Carboniferous period, known from fossils in Europe and North America.

Pennatomys nivalis is an extinct oryzomyine rodent from the islands of Sint Eustatius, Saint Kitts, and Nevis in the Lesser Antilles. The only species in the genus Pennatomys, it is known from skeletal remains found in Amerindian archeological sites on all three islands, with dates ranging from 790–520 BCE to 900–1200 CE. No live specimens are known, but there are several historical records of rodents from Saint Kitts and Nevis that could conceivably refer to Pennatomys. The animal apparently belongs to a group within the tribe Oryzomyini that includes many other island-dwelling species.

Platyceramus was a genus of Cretaceous bivalve molluscs belonging to the extinct inoceramid lineage. It is sometimes classified as a subgenus of Inoceramus.

Proterogyrinus was an extinct genus of early tetrapods from the order Embolomeri. Fossil remains of Proterogyrinus have been found in Scotland, UK, and West Virginia, United States, and date back to the Serpukhovian, which is from about 331 to 323 million years ago. The genus was originally named by renowned vertebrate paleontologist Alfred Sherwood Romer in 1970. A comprehensive redescription was later published by Canadian paleontologist Robert Holmes in 1984. The generic name "Proterogyrinus" is Greek for "earlier wanderer" or "earlier tadpole". This name was chosen by Romer in keeping with a trend of naming long-bodied early tetrapods with the suffix "-gyrinus".

Protosuchus is an extinct genus of carnivorous crocodylomorph from the Early Jurassic. The name Protosuchus means "first crocodile", and is among the earliest animals that resemble crocodilians. Protosuchus was about 1 metre (3.3 ft) in length and about 40 kilograms (88 lb) in weight.

Ptychodus is a genus of extinct hybodontiform sharks. As well as a genus of durophagous (shell-crushing) sharks from the Late Cretaceous. Fossils of Ptychodus teeth are found in many Late Cretaceous marine sediments. There are many species among the Ptychodus that have been uncovered on all the continents around the globe. Such species are Ptychodus mortoni, P. decurrens, P. marginalis, P. mammillaris, P. rugosus and P. latissimus to name a few. They died out approximately 85 million years ago in the Western Interior Sea, where a majority of them were found. A recent publication found that Ptychodus are classified as neoselachian versus hybodont or batoid.

The Rocky Mountain locust is an extinct species of grasshopper that ranged through the western half of the United States and some western portions of Canada with large numbers seen until the end of the 19th century. Sightings often placed their swarms in numbers far larger than any other locust species, with one famous sighting in 1875 estimated at 198,000 square miles (510,000 km2) in size, weighing 27.5 million tons and consisting of some 12.5 trillion insects, the greatest concentration of animals ever speculatively guessed, according to Guinness World Records.

Simoedosaurus is an extinct reptile known from the Paleocene of North America, Europe and western Asia, and a member of the Choristodera, a group of aquatic reptiles that lived in the Northern Hemisphere from the Jurassic to the early Cenozoic.

Stegodon, meaning "roofed tooth" because of the distinctive ridges on the animal's molars, is a genus of the extinct subfamily Stegodontinae of the order Proboscidea. It was assigned to the family Elephantidae, but has also been placed in the Stegodontidae. Stegodonts were present from 11.6 million years ago (Mya) to the late Pleistocene, with unconfirmed records of localized survival until 4,100 years ago. Fossils are found in Asian and African strata dating from the late Miocene; during the Pleistocene, they lived across large parts of Asia and East and Central Africa, and in Wallacea as far east as Timor.