The creature still thrives on Shikoku island in western Japan.
Shigefumi Yano, a retired high school teacher and snail enthusiast, made the startling discovery after asking himself whether it was possible the species had survived.
The creature in question is Awalycaeus yanoshokoae, a minuscule snail with a shell just 4 millimeters in diameter. It is a member of the subfamily Alycaeinae. The species was only known in fossilized remains from 33,000 years ago in sedimentary layers in a Sarudado limestone cave located on a hillside in Hidaka, Kochi Prefecture.
Yano, who is 65 and a resident of Kanonji, Kagawa Prefecture, started poking around the local cave after reading an article in 2012 about the snail fossils discovered there.
“Whether they were still living there was a gamble since the species in the Sarudado cave was known only through fossils,” Yano said. “I was thrilled when I actually found them.”
“Since fossils of contemporary species were found alongside the snail fossils, I thought that just maybe this snail hadn’t become extinct, either,” he said.
With his wife Shoko, 60, Yano started investigating in January 2014.
Yano theorized that if the mollusk species still existed, it would be found along layers of limestone around the Sarudado cave. He pored over local geological maps to pinpoint limestone sediment in the area and headed two months later to sites he had identified.
But the task he set himself was like finding a needle in a haystack.
The couple scoured mountain slopes for hours on end, to no avail. Yano was on the verge of giving up when Shoko came across an Awalycaeus shell.-read more
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