Visiting Professor of Biology Seabird McKeon is quoted in this article about the extinction of an Hawaiian snail species, with the New Year’s Day death of a small, 14-year-old snail named George by Hawaiian scientists. It is another blow to the native Hawaiian ecosystem, which as the most isolated group of islands on the planet contains species found nowhere else.
Said McKeon, "Think of the process as something like a spectacular firework — one inconspicuous, lucky species travels an outrageous distance and then explodes into a breathtaking diversity of color or form. George’s lineage of landsnails is one of these fireworks, and ‘his’ death is the most recent loss in a long series of human-induced extinctions."
The full article can be found here: https://bit.ly/2VHQ5Bl
