“孤独乔治”死亡，夏威夷树蜗灭绝

Lonely George was the last Hawaiian tree snail（蜗牛）of his kind. He died, and an entire（全部的）species has gone extinct（灭绝）.

(CNN)Lonely George has died.

With himwent an entire species.

Formallyknown as Achatinellaapexfulva（金顶夏威夷树蜗）, the 14-year-old Hawaiian treesnail was the last of its kind on the planet.

He had beenlonely since shortly after his birth, living in a captive breeding facility（驯养繁殖场）at the University of Hawaii aspart of a final attempt（尝试） to save his species and othersfrom extinction（灭绝）.

TheAchatinella apexfulva now joins hundreds of snail species that have vanished（消失） from the Hawaiian islands overthe last several decades, University of Hawaii Professor Emeritus MichaelHadfield said.

"Thenumber of species in Hawaii was somewhere approaching（接近）800 in 11 differentfamilies," he said. Three-fourths of those species, he said, are nowextinct.

"Theywere the best known tree snails, big and pretty snails, once hyper（非常的）abundant（繁多） in the forest ... of theisland," Hadfield said of the Achatinella genus（类别，属） -- which included Lonely George."There's no doubt that only 10 or so of those (species) still exist, andnone of them will survive in the next 10 years."

"Theextinctions have just been horrendous（可怕的）."

Hadfield rana conservation lab for a large group of snails in the family to which LonelyGeorge belonged. The lab studied the snails' population growth and, in 1997,collected the last ten known snails in George's species. Most of them laterdied, leaving only George.

TheDepartment of Land and Natural Resources called George's death "asignificant loss to locals as he was featured（起重要作用）in numerous（许多的） articles andhundreds of school children have viewed him over the years."

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