Ohio's Rare Animal Species You Didn't Know Went Extinct

Extinction might conjure images of dinosaurs being wiped out or of the erstwhile dodo, but there is an ongoing global extinction crisis that threatens multiple species alive today. Not only have several species gone extinct in the last decade alone, today many animals are on the brink of extinction. This is true across the United States, where many more animals than you might think face existential threats, including multiple creatures that are endemic to certain areas of the country.

In Ohio, 132 species of wildlife are listed as endangered, while 44 have been identified as threatened, meaning they face threats that could lead to them becoming endangered in the near future. But perhaps the most dismaying statistic is that the state has seen 20 species become extinct since the time of European settlement. This includes six types of mollusk, two types of birds, one beetle species, and three fish — one of which is the Scioto madtom, a catfish that was last seen in the 1950s. Almost 70 years later, the fish was confirmed as extinct, adding another species to Ohio's list of lost animals. Originally located in Big Darby Creek, the fish was endemic to the Scioto River basin in central Ohio, making its loss all the more tragic.

The Scioto madtom was a small catfish in the family Ictaluridae, which typically reached lengths of 2 inches or less. This particular catfish species was an omnivorous bottom feeder, using the sensory barbels that dangled from its mouth to find various plants and animals on which to feast. Though the fish took its name from the large Scioto River, it was never actually found there. Instead, the Scioto madtom was only ever found in Trautman's riffle (a shallow part of a stream), a part of Big Darby Creek, which in turn is a major tributary to the Scioto River.

Ichthyologist Milton Trautman and his colleague Walter Cunningham first discovered the species back in 1943, when Trautman caught two of the fish. He found several more over the next couple of years before going a full 12 years without seeing another. In 1957, multiple Scioto madtom appeared in Trautman's riffle, but this would be the last time anyone saw the fish, and multiple intensive surveys in the decades since turned up no sightings. 

In all, just 18 Scioto madtom were ever collected before they disappeared and in September 1975, the elusive catfish species was listed as endangered. Due to the lack of sightings, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) determined that a recovery plan was unlikely to help the species' return. Indeed, the Endangered Species Act was only written in 1973, which was already likely too late to save the madtom, and after several reviews in the following decades noted no change in the fish's status, it was officially declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in October 2023.

Though the exact cause of the Scioto madtom's extinction remains unconfirmed, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) suspects siltation as a major contributing factor. Silt from dams and runoff is likely to have built up in the madtom's habitat, which when combined with the introduction of industrial effluents and agricultural runoff likely made Big Darby Creek uninhabitable for the species. The USFWS notes that competition from the northern madtom, a catfish first recorded in 1957 — the same year the Scioto madtom was last seen — may also have been a factor in the catfish's demise. Whatever the case, Big Darby Creek has undergone significant changes since the madtom was first recorded by Milton Trautman, which almost certainly impacted the species and appears to have been fatal to its continued existence.

Sadly, the disappearance of the Scioto madtom has left many questions about this unique species unanswered. Even prior to its extinction, the fish was incredibly rare. Not only was the madtom nocturnal, it was only ever found between September and December. Experts never determined what it did during the daytime hours or where it went during the summer months. What's more, it was never confirmed why their numbers were so low in the first place, nor why they were only ever found to exist within Trautman's riffle. Lamentably, these questions will now linger indefinitely.