1,329 Rare Snails Once Believed Extinct Reintroduced to Island off Morocco [Video]

More than 1,300 critically endangered land snails have been released in the Ilhas Desertas (Desert Islands) archipelago off the Moroccan coast.

The reintroduction of the tiny molluscs to their native habitat followed the rescue of two obscure species of the snail from the edge of extinction, reported The Guardian. The snails hadn’t been recorded for over a century and were thought to have disappeared.

“If it goes as well as we hope, more snails will follow them next spring. It’s a huge team effort which shows that it is possible to turn things around for highly threatened species,” said Gerardo Garcia, curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates at Chester Zoo in the United Kingdom, as the BBC reported.

The pea-sized molluscs are native to mountainous Deserta Grande island, southeast of Madeira. Their habitat was destroyed by invasive mice, rats and goats that had been brought there by humans.

A wild refuge for the snails was restored on …