Lonesome George was discovered motionless in his enclosure, one morning in June 2012. Overnight, George had taken not only his final breath but the final breath of his entire species, the Pinta Island tortoise, as it faded into extinction.
Obituaries for George soon followed in the New York Times, the Economist and a host of other outlets as befits an extinction celebrity.
However, as we enter what may be the sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history, there isn’t always an equivalent outpouring of grief when a species slips away. For example, how many column inches were afforded to the bean snail after its extinction in 2016?
