Lost species and rediscovery
Species nobody has confirmed alive in years, the lists that name them, and where a rediscovery gets reported.
14 resources
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Species Black List rediscoveriesTBG projectNew
Daily feed of rediscovery reports across fourteen national news editions, showing what was reported rather than what is confirmed
Scan what the press is claiming about a rediscovery before you cite it as confirmed
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Re:wild Search for Lost Species
The master list: 4,350+ species undocumented for ten years or more, nominated by over 100 IUCN specialist groups. Carries the rotating Top 25 Most Wanted and separate target lists for amphibians, turtles, sharks, primates and small mammals
Check whether your target is already on a lost list, and who nominated it, before planning an expedition
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Lost Mammals Initiative
25 lost or barely known mammals, from Thor's hero shrew to the saola, run as a community competition with tour-operator prizes. Five are already found
Enter the community search for a lost mammal, or check which of the 25 are already found
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Search for Lost Birds
121 lost birds as of January 2026, revised annually with the adds and removes published
Read the annual adds and removes to know whether a bird is still considered lost this year
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Search for the Lost Fishes
300+ lost freshwater fishes with a 10 Most Wanted, and it invites outside teams to mount their own expeditions
Pitch your own expedition against its 10 Most Wanted, or read the blueprint before proposing freshwater fish work
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iNaturalist Search for Lost Species project
Where sightings of candidate lost species get logged, 13 sub-projects and 750+ observers
Log a possible sighting of a lost species where specialists are actually watching for it
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The Lost Insect Species
Insects unobserved for fifty years or more, with trips organized to go refind them
Find which insects have gone unrecorded for fifty years, then join a trip going after them
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Atelopus Survival Initiative
60 organizations across 15 countries chasing harlequin toads, around 40% of which have not been seen since the early 2000s
Connect with the 60 groups already searching harlequin toads before duplicating a survey in the neotropics
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Lost Ladybug Project
Cornell hunt for vanished native North American ladybugs. Note the link is http, because https fails on this host
Send a ladybug photo into a long-running Cornell dataset tracking which native species are being displaced
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Artensterben.de
Extinctions since 1500 plus an annual rediscovery retrospective, in German and English
Read the annual rediscovery retrospective, and get German-language extinction coverage the English lists miss
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Hawaii Plant Extinction Prevention Program
Plants down to fewer than 50 wild individuals, and the closest thing to a systematic lost-plants search
Copy its method for triaging plants below fifty wild individuals when you need a rescue priority order
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Kew Lost and Found Fungi
100 of Britain's most under-recorded fungi, sent out to volunteer treasure hunts. Delivered 2014 to 2020, so read it as a method rather than a live project
Reuse its volunteer treasure-hunt design for under-recorded species, since the project itself has already finished
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Lost and rediscovered tetrapods dataset
Lindken et al. 2024 open dataset of lost and rediscovered tetrapods, with taxonomy, geography and Red List status
Reanalyze the open data behind which lost tetrapods get refound, instead of rebuilding the table yourself
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Lost but not forgotten
The Oryx paper that defines missing, lost and long-lost. Everything above uses its terms
Cite it so your use of missing, lost and long-lost matches how everyone else means them