A dog made the discovery of a lifetime when it discovered an animal believed to be extinct after it wasn’t seen for nearly 90 years.
The collie had been deployed by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) as a scent detection dog in a yearslong and nearly hopeless pursuit of finding traces of the De Winton’s golden mole. This shimmering mole rarely appears above ground and was last seen in 1936.
Researchers couldn’t confirm if the species still existed until the dog made the discovery in South Africa. The EWT team made the announcement on Facebook Tuesday morning.
The blind moles live almost entirely underground and don’t leave behind tunnels like other species of moles. They appear to “swim” through the sand, according to a press release from EWT, and their extremely sensitive hearing alerts them to vibrations above ground, allowing them to burrow without being seen.
Newsweek reached out to EWT via email for comment.
After a lot of hard work, the researchers finally found what they were looking for.
“Though many people doubted that De Winton’s golden mole was still out there, I had good faith that the species had not yet gone extinct,” Cobus Theron, a senior conservation manager for EWT and a member of the search team, said in a press release. “I was convinced it would just take the right detection method, the proper timing, and a team passionate about finding it.
“I think it’s just fantastic that in 2023 we can still rediscover species. All of our stories around conservation are doom and gloom. Here we have an opportunity to say that, actually, there are opportunities to make change.”
Species have gone extinct at a much higher rate than is expected with evolution, and the blame has largely been placed on humans and their detrimental impact on certain species’ environments. Experts believe that the modern extinction rate is as much as 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate, according to The World Wildlife Fund, making for a dim outlook.
However, rediscovering a species previously thought to be extinct—like the De Winton’s golden mole—provides a glimmer of hope.
Researchers have discovered the presence of other species thought to be gone from the planet, including a fish called the small longhead darter found in Ohio after 82 years.
A gecko thought to be extinct was discovered thriving on one of the Galápagos Islands and the Mini Galaxy flower was found growing in the middle of a road in Africa after not being spotted for over 40 years.