
Lonely George the tree snail dies, and a species goes extinct - pseudolus
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/01/george-the-lonely-snail-dies-in-hawaii-extinction/
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kahlonel
It makes me so sad for a whole week whenever I hear the news of a species
going extinct.

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dankusmcmeme
They stole the name from the turtle?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_George](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_George)

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yohann305
i hope they are keeping his remains frozen, hopefully we could restart this
species in a couple hundred years

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perilunar
"George’s remains were preserved in ethanol and his shell will join the more
than 2 million other Hawaiian land snail specimens in the Bernice Pauahi
Bishop Museum’s malacological collection. (Malacology is the study of
mollusks.)"

"And back in 2017, a tiny piece of George’s foot was carefully cut off and
sent to scientists with the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation
Research’s “Frozen Zoo” to provide DNA should scientists ever desire to clone
him—which isn't currently possible, but likely will be in the near future.
Every animal that dies in the captive breeding program is preserved, and
Hadfield notes that it’s sometimes possible to get DNA from old shells as
well, so there may be enough genetic diversity to bring the species back. But
unless the forests they lived in are restored as well, and the invasive
animals removed, there will be nowhere safe to put them."

So maybe one day, when we fixed the other more urgent ecological problems
(climate change, habitat loss, etc.) we'll be able to bring back some of these
lost species. Maybe.

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pseudolus
Overly anthropomorphized but still a bit of a tear jerker. Perhaps in the
future a Disney movie with a happier ending?

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SomeHacker44
Disney will have to wait 90 years for the material to enter public domain
first. </s>

