Odds are, you've never seen an ivory-billed woodpecker. The stunning and long-endangered avian species has eluded birdwatchers for generations, sending people deep into the swamps of the southeastern United States just to catch a glimpse of the "Lord God" Bird — named supposedly for the refrain that people who managed to spot it would say. But opportunities to see the elusive woodpecker have officially run out: It, along with 21 other species of animals and one species of plant, were declared extinct by the U.S. government on Wednesday.
Joining the ivory-billed woodpecker on the list of species who have entirely disappeared off the face of the Earth: the yellow-breasted Bachman's warbler, the Hawaiian Kauai O'o forest bird, the Mariana fruit bat, eight different species of freshwater mussels, two types of fish, and eight other types of birds. The lone plant to get eliminated from the survivor pool was the phyllostegia glabra var. lanaiensis, a long-endangered plant that liked to hang out in the moist and wet forests of Hawaii.
