Two species of tiny Desertas Islands snails have been bred at the UK’s Chester Zoo and released back into the wild onto one of Portugal's islands.
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00:00Two different species of tiny desertus island land snails have been bred at the UK's Chester
00:07Zoo and released back into the wild in Portugal.
00:12Believed to have already disappeared from the planet, a team of experts was surprised
00:17to find a small number of the creatures living on a remote island in the Madeira archipelago.
00:24Working with experts at the UK's Bristol Zoo and France's Beauval Zoo, staff were able
00:30to reproduce around 1,300 of the snails, saving the species from the edge of extinction.
00:39They were brought back to the UK from the islands near Madeira, where experts recreated
00:44miniature habitat tanks with the right food and conditions in a converted shipping container.
00:52The snails are thought to be the last of their kind on the planet.