Praise Gaia!

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A snail once thought to have been among the first species to go extinct because of climate change has reappeared in the wild.

The Aldabra banded snail, declared extinct seven years ago, was rediscovered on Aug. 23 in the Indian Ocean island nation of Seychelles. The mollusk, which is endemic to the Aldabra coral atoll — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — had not been seen on the islands since 1997, said the Seychelles Islands Foundation.

The snail’s apparent demise was linked to declining rainfall on Aldabra, and was widely considered to be among the first species whose extinction could be directly tied to global warming, said biologist Justin Gerlach, a scientific coordinator for the Nature Protection Trust of Seychelles.

HT: WUWT