Bird - Forest Owlet, Athene blewitt 1996
Rediscovered by Ornithologist Pamela Rasmussen after being unseen for 113 years.
Source: Smithsonian Institution Research Reports, http://www.si.edu/opa/researchreports/9996/owlet.htm

Mammal - Wooly Flying Squirrel - Eupetaurus cinereus 1995
The woolly flying squirrel, thought to be extinct, has been rediscovered in Northern Pakistan. The largest squirrel in the world, its rediscovery startled Dr. Charles Woods, an expert on Pakistani mammals, who noted, "We've really scoured the area and never seen it."
Source: Yoon, Carol Kaesuk. 1995. "Woolly Flying Squirrel, Long thought extinct, Shows up in Pakistan," New York Times, March 14.


Flowering Plant - Orchid - Cymbidium bicolor 1996
Listed as an extinct orchid in the Red Data Book, it was last collected in Sungei Buloh in 1891 by Mr H. N. Ridley. That's almost a hundred year and ten years ago, and this species has miraculously survived much habitat loss.
Source: http://www.sbnp.org/Wetlands/text/00-7-3-6.htm

Mammal - Gilbert’s Potoroo Potorous tridactylus gilberti 1994
The most recent discovery of Gilbert’s Potoroo was a chance encounter. This subspecies of Potorous tridactylus was come upon while two people were trapping quokkas (small relative of a kangaroo) to study genetic variations at Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve in Australia ... it was thought to have gone extinct in the 1870’s after the last specimen was recorded in 1869.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/5103/species/potoroo.html

Mammal - Whale - 1998
The New Zealand southern right whale thought to be extinct has been rediscovered near the Auckland Islands, 200 miles south of New Zealand. Their breeding population has been estimated at 100 to 150 animals. At first these whales were thought to belong to the standard Australian population of right whales, however DNA analysis has shown that they are of genetically different.
Source: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/5103/species/nzrightwhale.html

Plant - Shrub - Asterolasia buxifolia 2001
A shrub collected by the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney has turned out to be a species not seen for 160 years and thought by some to be extinct. The species Asterolasia buxifolia  ... is so rare that it has no common name and has only ever been recorded at one location. Originally collected by early explorer and botanist Allan Cunningham in the Blue Mountains in the 1830s, Asterolasia buxifolia was then lost – so completely that it has not even been recognised in recent botanical books.
Source: http://www.rbgsyd.gov.au/HTML/MEDIA/Pressrelease/Asterolasia%20buxifolia.htm

Elasmobranch - Borneo River Shark Glyphis species B 1998
Until last month, the Borneo River Shark (known to scientists simply as Glyphis species B') was recognised from just one preserved specimen found in a museum in Vienna, taken from an unknown river in Borneo over 100 years ago. However, a small shark caught by fishermen earlier this year was kept for the Shark Specialist Group survey team by a family in a small riverside kampong (village) of Sabah. Several other juvenile River Sharks caught in the same net were photographed by the fishermen before being discarded.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/InNews/glyphis.htm

Reptile -Giant Tortoises (2 species) Dipsochelys hololissa and Dipsochelys arnoldi 1997
The survival of two species of extinct giant tortoises from the granitic islands of Seychelles was confirmed by The Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles.
http://members.aol.com/jstgerlach/tortoise.htm

Plant - Tree St. Helena Boxwood Mellissia begonifolia 1999
Unseen for over 100 years, the unique St Helena Boxwood (Mellissia begonifolia) has been rediscovered by local hiker Stedson Stroud, and taken for identification to St Helena's Conservation Officer, Dr Rebecca Cairns-Wicks.
http://www.rbg.ca/cbcn/en/news/press_boxwood.html

Crustacean - Shrimp 1996
Two clam shrimp species, thought to be extinct since 1879 and 1975, respectively. ... were rediscovered.
http://mailbox.univie.ac.at/~edere6/UZK/literatur/hydrobio96.html

Bird - Chinese Crested Tern - Thalasseus bernsteini 2001
The Chinese crested tern has been rediscovered on the island of Matsu. The bird had been thought to be extinct.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/04/22/story/0000082772

Bird - Pale-headed Brush-finch Atlapetes pallidiceps  1998
Ana Agreda was part of a team that rediscovered four pairs of the Pale-headed Brush-finch Atlapetes pallidiceps previously thought extinct, in the Río Jubones drainage in southern Ecuador, where it was last recorded in 1969
http://www.americanbirding.org/programs/consbexn.htm

Reptile - Giant 'royal' turtles 2001
BIOLOGISTS HAVE announced the discovery in Cambodia of live specimens of a species of giant turtle once considered the exclusive property of the royal family but long thought extinct here. The discovery of a colony of endangered giant estuarine terrapins - which weigh up to 70 pounds each - in a remote stretch of river was made by scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) . They have not been spotted alive since the late 19th century
http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/280201/dtLFOR23.asp

Bird - Pheasant Lophura edwardii 1998
A species of pheasant long thought to be extinct has been rediscovered in central Vietnam.  ... The last known capture of the species was in 1928, but the Edwards's pheasant- Lophura edwardii-had already been considered rare five years earlier when Jean Delacour, a French ornithologist, took 15 of the birds back to Paris. Three expeditions conducted between 1988 and 1994 had failed to sight one.
http://alpha.mic.dundee.ac.uk/ft/stories/Extinctpheasantsarerediscovered.html

Bird - Goose 1992
The Aleutian Canada Goose, once thought to be extinct, has come back to more than 40,000 birds.  ... The "Aleutian geese" were recognized as an endangered species in 1967, when they numbered fewer than 500 and were almost lost. Indeed, they were so few that no one even saw them for nearly 25 years. Scientists thought they were extinct.
http://www.redwoodlink.com/soar/comebackstory.shtml

Plants - Hawaiian
Since 1990, Hawaii's National Tropical Botanical Garden's staff members have discovered 28 new species and one new genus, and rediscovered 22 species thought to be extinct.
http://www.ntbg.org/hemisphe.html

Plant - Goldenrod 1995
Just in time for hayfever season, 2 researchers have independently rediscovered a species of goldenrod thought to be extinct. One of the discoverers, Nature Conservancy botanist Alan Weakley, said scientists thought the plume goldenrod went extinct in 1921 after the building of 2 dams on North Carolina's Yadkin River.
National Public Radio http://www.loe.org/archives/950811.htm

Plant - Diminutive Clusterhead - Sorocephalus tenuifolius 1994
Was thought to be extinct after the last known population was ploughed up in 1987.
http://protea.worldonline.co.za/cluster2.htm#sotenu

Tree - trochetia parviflora 2001
A species of tree so good at hiding on inaccessible cliff faces people had assumed it extinct for the last 140 years, has now been found growing in Mauritius.
http://www.now.com/directory/regions_of_the_world/africa/mauritius.htm

Plant - pygmy bluetongue Tiliqua adelaidensis 1992
The pygmy bluetongue (Tiliqua adelaidensis) was thought to be
extinct until rediscovered in native grassland near Burra in 1992
http://www.treesforlife.org.au/ReLeaf/archives/pygmy.html

Mammal - Hog Deer 1992
The gentle-tempered, endearingly awkward deer [had not been seen in 50 years]. But in 1992, Mr Atapattu's department found two hog deer being kept as pets at Batapola, a hamlet 96 km south of Colombo. ‘Since then I have been spending my free time meeting villagers, schoolchildren and asking them about hog deer, ’ Mr Atapattu said.

Hog deer have a thickset appearance and peculiar gait. The animal runs with its head down and at times collides with fellow deer, other animals and even trees.
http://cfzarchive.tripod.com/cnews/redis18.htm