a dolphin, extinct

The odd river dolphin (baiji) of China's Yangtze River looks like it has gone extinct. "Gone extinct," such a quaint, indirect term. It was hunted, and it lost its habitat as the river was dredged and grew increasingly polluted -- human activities, all.

This would be the first cetacean to go extinct in modern times. But don't bet on its bigger marine cousins like the blue whale and the right whale outliving the baiji by too many decades.