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Interestingly there is a term for the last known member of a species: Endling [1]. Scrolling through that Wikipedia article always gives me an eerie feeling. It
by HMH 5y ago
Interestingly there is a term for the last known member of a species: Endling [1]. Scrolling through that Wikipedia article always gives me an eerie feeling. It looks like the Chinese paddlefish is not listed yet though.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endling
- MawKKe 5y agoLast time similar topic came up (either here or reddit), someone posted this recording of a ”Kauaʻi ʻōʻō” bird [1] in which a male, apparently the last of its species, is trying to connect with a female. Reeally eerie. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDRY0CmcYNU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDRY0CmcYNU
- shakezula 5y agoThis shit always just makes me so incredibly, deeply sad. It's the loneliest thing I can imagine.
- libraryatnight 5y agoAbsolutely beautiful and heartbreaking, thank you - I might never have stumbled upon that.
- n00begon 5y agoThe podcast "Anthropocene Reviewed" has an episode[1] on the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō including the last time it was seen if you would like to know more about it. [1] https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed/episodes/anthropocene-reviewed-qwerty-keyboard-and-kauai-o-o https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed/e...
- libraryatnight 5y agoThank you I am going to give this a listen!
- dexwell 5y agoMy gods, this broke me.
- dennis_moore 5y agoIt seems like a tremendously difficult task to declare that a particular individual is an endling. Do you know how a zoologist would infer such a thing?
- kaba0 5y agoOnly a guess, but if there is no sighting of it in the wild for a very long time (eg. from the article it was 10 years, but I guess it depends on species, how long does it live, how many offsprings it produces etc) and there is one living in captivity it is not that hard to declare.