Ottsel

Ottsels are an extinct species that died off towards the end of the BY years. They were most notable for evolving into today's otters & weasels & had many interesting traits. The most known ottsel in recorded history was Daxter, the pet ottsel of the famous Wildwoodian soldier, Jak.

Traits
Ottsels were possibly descendants of the same common ancestor to humans, as through years of evolution, they retained the impressive ability to speak English, think logically instead of compulsion to instinct & they can use tools like regular humans.

Geological history
Ottsels first appeared some time in the Middle Pennsylvanian approximately 330 million years ago. Given that they would evolve into weasels, they used to live in burrows & would salvage scraps of matter they ate. This is possibly how they managed to survive the Permian Mass Extinction about 80 million years later. This also helped them escape the clutches of predating dinosaurs that roamed the Earth for 165 million years before the Cretaceous Mass Extinction, which ottsels survived too.

Recent history
In the recent history, the conservation status of ottsels towards the end of the BY years began to enter the threatened zone. The ottsels were recorded Least Concern in 20BY, 1 year later, they became Near Threatened. In 15BY, their conservation status was Vulnerable, which entered Endangered & became Critically Endangered by 10BY. In 5BY, they were declared Extinct in the Wild as the Wildwoodians hurryedly rounded up most of them except for pets to keep in captivity so they could survive. However, this did not work.

Evolutionary pressure
At the time of 20BY, Earth was introduced with new species: otters & weasels. Over the course of millions of years, ottsels were reproducing & small changes in DNA began to show up as the ottsel population slowly started a decrease as more weasels & otters arrived on Earth. According to scientists in the Great Inventing when researching the ending of the ottsel race, they realized that this type of extinction was fated to happen at some point as the forces of evolution would slowly diminish the population until there were practically no ottsels left on Earth.

Human activity
The decreasing population was compromised by human activity as humans began to indulge activitys that accelerated the mortality rates. In 10BY, the ottsels began to die off as this was also the same time that World War I began. The wars began to cause the population to dive off the charts.

Endangerment
The combination of these events led to the endangerment of the population. Scientists in the Great Inventing estimated that if human activity, such as World War I, had not interfered & the natural processes of natural selection & evolution prevailed, the entire ottsel species might've existed to 15Y or longer. The population in 5BY became so small that Wildwoodians began to keep them as pets & raise them out of the war's way.

Final extinction
The ottsels had survived major extinction events in the past millions of years. However, their extinction was fated in 3BY. The war had diminished the population by 90%, it was estimated that every 1 out of 4 ottsels died each month, which was a ratio of 12 out of 48 each year. The population by Wildwoodians was recorded to be 45 in the beginning of 3BY. That year, the ottsel death rate accelerated. The event of World War I that scientists used to mark the beginning of the Ottsel Extinction was the death of Daxter, the pet ottsel of the soldier, Jak. Daxter was one of the 20 surviving ottsels at that time & the 19 others began to die off as well. By December 3BY, only 3 were left, 2 males & 1 female & they all were in different sections of the world. They quickly died as well, ending the ottsel species completely. It was told by scientists that once one gender of a species died off, no more of that species could be reproduced & they would go into extinction.