A Snail Species Had Gone Extinct This Year

[RAMROD 117,912]

 

One famous snail’s death highlights the plight faced by diverse Hawaiian snails, of which there were once hundreds of species.

George, a Hawaiian tree snail—and the last known member of the species Achatinella apexfulva—died on New Year’s Day. He was 14, which is quite old for a snail of his kind.

George was born in a captive breeding facility at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in the early 2000s, and soon after, the rest of his kin died. That’s when he got his name—after Lonesome George, the Pinta Island tortoise who was also the last of his kind.

For over a decade, researchers searched in vain for another member of the species for George to mate with, to no avail.

"I know it’s just a snail, but it represents a lot more,” says David Sischo, a wildlife biologist with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources and coordinator of the Snail Extinction Prevention Program.

 

Find out why it is significant on full article at source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/01/george-the-lonely-snail-dies-in-hawaii-extinction/

 

R.I.P. George

[Logan 20,890]

It absolutely breaks my heart when a species completely goes extinct. We will never see them again. 

[Horny Chicken 11,103]

14 minutes ago, Logan said:

It absolutely breaks my heart when a species completely goes extinct. We will never see them again. 

Don't be sad, species go extinct everyday. 99.99% of all species on earth have gone extinct because they couldn't adapt and died out due to competition or other natural causes. Most of it is natural but now that humans are the cause, we have to be careful or we could be the cause of our own extinction. I think it's just a byproduct of our success.

 

What's interesting is the species that we do choose to save - pandas for example. Pandas rely on a strict diet that is low in nutrition and they need to spend many hours a day munching on bamboo in order to survive. They also refuse to mate. So from an evolutionary standpoint, they should have gone extinct a long time ago. We only choose to save them because they are really cute!

[LOVEDRUG 11,339]

55 minutes ago, Aquariusgine said:

Don't be sad, species go extinct everyday. 99.99% of all species on earth have gone extinct because they couldn't adapt and died out due to competition or other natural causes. Most of it is natural but now that humans are the cause, we have to be careful or we could be the cause of our own extinction. I think it's just a byproduct of our success.

 

What's interesting is the species that we do choose to save - pandas for example. Pandas rely on a strict diet that is low in nutrition and they need to spend many hours a day munching on bamboo in order to survive. They also refuse to mate. So from an evolutionary standpoint, they should have gone extinct a long time ago. We only choose to save them because they are really cute!

It's interesting, the things that are going extinct are being killed as a result of human activity and the things that we are saving should be extinct

[huttont 6,048]

Heartbreaking. There are many species endangered or are going extinct BECAUSE of humans. We will be the cause of annihilation on this planet.

[TimisaMonster 31,073]

Humans need to realize that global warming isnt the only thing affecting the the world...

Rapid extinction of species is ruining the balance of the ecosystem and not happening naturally. 

They arent a renewable resource and as it's already been said...we cant get them back! They're gone forever...and nature now has to manage without and that puts more strain...

[weed 79,277]

I wish I could witness the future species that come into existence on earth... all of these species going extinct, there's going to be so many new creatures developing

but this is for sure devastating, an example of humans being cancer