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Asked by tomas8luke to Samuel, Richard, Nikolai, Nicki, Cristiane on 16 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by 349susb46.
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Samuel Ellis answered on 16 Mar 2015:
Sadly due to changes in environment and other factors there are a lot of critically endangered species which are very close to extinct. One of the more famous is the Amur Leopard, with only a couple of hundred thought to be left in the wild at most.
Even rarer is the Hainan gibbon. Found on an island near China, loss of their habitat has resulted in only a few of this gibbon being left, with the latest survey only finding 22 of them in total!
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Nikolai Adamski answered on 16 Mar 2015:
Sadly, we are not short of rare species at the moment, thanks to environmental changes and loss of habitats, mostly caused by humans.
On the slightly bright side though, it can be possible to save endangered species, by freezing egg cells and sperm from them. You could impregnate a related species artificially using these egg cells and sperm. However, we would need to freeze away as many egg cells and sperm as possible to maintain a large enough genetic variation: Otherwise we create inbreed species.
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Cristiane Calixto answered on 18 Mar 2015:
We can’t pinpoint the rarest animal exactly, but there’s always a species that are endangered. Sam and Nikolai mentioned some of them.
I think the most famous rarest animal was Lonesome George the last living member of the Pinta Island giant tortoises. He died in 2012, so now the Pinta Island tortoises are extinct. Charles Darwin was there to study these tortoises.
Comments
Fran commented on :
it`s sad that so many animals are endangred:(
Nikolai commented on :
If you are interested in the fate of endangered species, then get involved. There are charities out there that you could support. And maybe you want to dedicate your future job to saving endangered species, e.g. as a scientist.
It’s easy to be sad about something and complain about it. But if you want to change something, you have to become active.