h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Last Pinta giant tortoise Lonesome George dies: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18574279

Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni, known as the Pinta Island tortoise, Pinta giant tortoise, Abingdon Island tortoise, or Abingdon Island giant tortoise, is a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise native to Ecuador's Pinta Island, believed to have become extinct in June 2012.

George was first seen on the island of Pinta on 1 December 1971 by Hungarian malacologist József Vágvölgyi. The island's vegetation had been devastated by introduced feral goats, and the indigenous C. n. abingdoni population had been reduced to a single individual. ... Relocated for his safety to the Charles Darwin Research Station, George was penned with two females of a different subspecies. Although eggs were produced, none hatched. The Pinta tortoise was pronounced functionally extinct as George was in captivity. On 24 June 2012, Lonesome George died of unknown causes
http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Chelonoidis_nigra_abingdoni

Goodbye George, within you lay 100,000 to a few million years of genetic information, and hundreds to thouusands of years of cultural information - it must be awfully lonely being the last of your kind, all your family, relatives and all your ancestors gone.

Goodbye George, I'm sorry

I saw some photos of George in life and in death, the last photos are so very final

They are in the Guardian, George in pictures, I would link but I can't get them to work

Peanut