This is a list of extinct animals of the British Isles, including extirpated species. Only a small number of the listed species are globally extinct (most famously the Irish elk, great auk and woolly mammoth). Most of the remainder survive to some extent outside the islands. The list includes introduced species only in cases where they were able to form self-sustaining colonies for a time. Only Pleistocene species, and specifically those extinct since the Ipswichian interglacial (c. 130,000 - c. 115,000 before present (BP)), Devensian glaciation (c. 115,000 – c. 11,700 BP) or into the Holocene (c. 11,700 BP - present), are included (that is, the assemblage that can be approximately considered the 'modern' fauna which displays insular differences from the mainland European fauna). The date beside each species is the last date when a specimen was observed in the wild or, where this is not known, the approximate date of extinction. Overview For most of its history, the British Isles were part of the main continent of Eurasia, linked by the region now known as Doggerland. Throughout the Pleistocene (Ice age) the climate alternated between cold glacial periods, including times when the climate was too cold to support much fauna, and temperate interglacials when a much larger fauna was present. Insularity first occurred around 125,000 BP, during the Ipswichian interglacial, when a warming climate raised sea levels and flooded Doggerland. This temperate climate supported an assemblage of species characterised by straight-tusked elephant (Palaeodoxodon antiquus). Around 115,000 BP the climate began to cool again as the Devensian glaciation began. The temperate species began to go extinct locally (many survived in southern refugia elsewhere in Europe). With the cooling climate, the sea level fell and by 60,000 BP a land bridge reformed so new or returning species could repopulate Britain. The colder climate supported a biome favoured by woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius). By around 20,000 BP the climate was so cold, with much of Britain under ice and the rest a polar desert, so that little life could survive, and the glacial fauna also went extinct. The climate began to warm again around 11,700 BP, entering the present climatic period known as the Holocene. Animals repopulated Britain and Ireland. Many of the former species had gone extinct during the interval, but the majority of the surviving European temperate fauna, and some new immigrants, including modern humans (Homo sapiens), were able to