According to Maori legend, the kokako gave Maui, the mythological hero, water as he battled the sun. (Its close cousin, the North Island kokako, pictured here, is considered “ at risk” though its population has been recovering in recent years.)Ī kind of New Zealand wattlebird, the South Island kokako had slate-gray feathers with brightly-colored wattles and black masks. The bird was last spotted in 2007 and is presumed extinct. Toughie had been “ a symbol of the extinction crisis,” a National Geographic obituary mourning the frog’s death said.Īn ancient bird once widespread in the forests of southern New Zealand, the South Island kokako was driven to extinction by large-scale deforestation, ecosystem fragmentation and the introduction of non-native predators. Like the Rabbs’ frog, several of the lost species were newly discovered.Īfter being rescued from Panama, Toughie was brought to the Atlanta Botanical Garden, where he lived alone in a climate-controlled facility known as the Frog Pod until his death. In Panama alone, the disease has led to the extinction of at least 30 frog species. It’s believed the Rabbs’ tree frog population did not survive the “catastrophic” fungus, which has been linked to climate change and poses a serious threat to amphibian populations worldwide. Scientists first identified Toughie’s species in 2005 - the year a group of researchers went to central Panama in a race to collect live animals before a deadly chytrid fungus consumed the area. He’s believed to have been the very last Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog on the planet, a Panamanian species known for being excellent climbers and gliders, with a most peculiar bird-like call.Ĭonservationist Mark Mandica, who worked with the amphibian and whose young son named the frog, said at the time that Toughie’s death served as a reminder of the many species that have been wiped out “before we even knew that they were there.” In September, Toughie, the loneliest frog on Earth, died at the age of 12. Fewer than 60 individuals survive on the planet, all of them in Ujung Kulon National Park in Java, Indonesia. Of the three subspecies of Javan rhino, only one - Rhinoceros sondaicus sondaicus - still exists. The Vietnamese rhino was a subspecies of the Javan rhino, regarded as one of the most endangered mammals on Earth. Of visiting the site where the Vietnamese rhino breathed her last, ending the lineage of an entire subspecies, Newcomer described being “incredibly” moved. Newcomer was part of the team that investigated the rhino’s death. "The gunshot did kill the rhino," Ed Newcomer, a US Fish and Wildlife Service agent, told the BBC. She eventually died - possibly months later - near a grove of towering bamboo. The animal had survived the shooting and had fled, injured, through the dense jungle. Her skeleton was found a year later, her horn “ crudely” hacked off and a bullet lodged in a foreleg.Ī poacher had used a semi-automatic weapon to shoot the rhino, conservationists later discovered. The very last of the subspecies, a female, died in 2009 in the jungle in southwest Vietnam. Like the Western black rhinoceros, the Vietnamese rhino was also hunted to extinction.
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