This is what extinction looks like. The last known female of the rarest kind of giant turtle in the world has just died. The female Yangtze giant softshell turtle passed away at the Suzhou Shangfangshan Forest Zoo in China, where she has lived since 2008. She was put under anesthesia during a fifth attempt to artificially inseminate her, a procedure that people hoped would help save her species from extinction. This time, she never woke up. With just three male Yangtze giant softshell turtles left, the death of the last female makes the species functionally extinct. “It is tragic that the only known female of this species has died,” the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) wrote in a statement, “but the real tragedy here is that this species has been decimated to near extinction by hunting and habitat destruction.” The female was first brought to the zoo in hopes that she would successfully mate with a 100-year-old male Yangtze gian...
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