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Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A rare glimpse of the Ili Pika 
  
 Everyone on social media is talking about China's "magic bunny", the cutest endangered animal that you have never heard of. 
  
 Sixty-year-old retired conservationist Li Weidong has been on a mission for over 30 years to document and protect the highly-endangered Ili Pika - a mysterious rabbit-like mammal only found in China. With less than 1,000 left they are now rarer than pandas. 
  
 Mr Li first spotted the "magic bunny" in 1983. 
  
 He remembers his first encounter vividly. "I had been climbing a mountain for four hours, and was just catching my breath, when suddenly, I saw the shadow of a small creature running by." 
  
 "I sat down next to some rocks, and suddenly two bunny ears emerged from the crack of one of the rocks. The little thing was staring at me, blinking at me. I thought it was the most beautiful and bizarre creature I'd ever seen. I couldn't believe my eyes." 
  
 Image caption Mr Li first spotted the animal in 1983 in the mountains of the Ili Prefecture 
  
 At the time Mr Li was working on disease prevention. He was not looking to discover a new species. 
  
 There are many different kinds of pikas - small rabbit-like mammals with short limbs and round ears - but unlike other pikas, the one Mr Li spotted had three distinct brown stripes on its forehead and around its neck. 
  
 After three years of research, Mr Li and his team named the little creature the Ili Pika, after the area where it is found, the Ili Prefecture on the far west side of China's Xinjiang province. 
  
 New danger 
  
 Scientifically known as Ochotona iliensis, the Ili Pika live in holes between bare rocks at an altitude of 2,800m (9, 186ft) to 4,000m. They are used to living on the extremely cold plateau and feeding on herbs found in the Tian Shan mountains. 
  
 After he made the discovery, Mr Li and his fellow conservationists decided to take measures to protect the pikas. But they did not want any publicity. 
  
 They thought it was better to leave the pikas alone in their natural habitat. 
  
 Image caption The Ili Pika lives in holes in the bare rock and is hunted by foxes, weasels and birds 
  
 The natural prey of foxes, weasels and birds, the Ili Pika now face a new danger. 
  
 In the past 30 years, their habitat has shrunk by 71%, Mr Li said. This is partly because of climate change and partly because their grazing area has been taken over by a growing population of people at the bottom of the mountain. 
  
 "The Ili Pikas all live on isolated mountain tops, so their habitats are highly fragmented," Mr Li explains. "Losing even one is detrimental for the entire group." 
  
 Mr Li saw the mysterious pika a few more times including in 1990. But then he did not see one again for 24 years. 
  
 Ancient species 
  
 The Ili Pika shot to fame after the National Geographic profiled it. Now it has gone viral. The sudden rise to fame worries Mr Li. 
  
 "Many people have written to me to say they want to help me protect the pikas," he said. "But more attention also means more danger for them." 
  
 Ili Pika is an ancient species. "We cannot let them disappear in front of our eyes." ||||| Beijing (CNN) Native to a remote region of China, this tiny mammal, known as the Ili pika, doesn't know it's a member of an endangered species -- and neither do most people. 
  
 Li discovered the pika, formally known as Ochotona iliensis, in 1983 and named it after his hometown, Ili. 
  
 Last July, Li spotted and photographed the elusive creature for the first time since the early 1990s. He estimates its numbers have declined by almost 70% since its discovery. 
  
 "I discovered the species, and I watched as it became endangered," he told CNN. 
  
 "If it becomes extinct in front of me, I'll feel so guilty." 
  
 In 2008, the animal was listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature but there's no official organization or team dedicated studying or protecting it, according to Li. 
  
 Shrinking habitat 
  
 The Ili pika photographed by Li Weidong in July 2014. 
  
 The mammal, only 20 centimeters long, lives on sloping bare rock faces and feeds on grasses at high elevations. Li says the pika's habitat has been affected by global warming. 
  
 Due to rising temperatures, glaciers have receded and the altitude of permanent snow has risen in the Tianshan mountains, forcing the pikas to gradually retreat to mountain tops, Li said. 
  
 Ili pikas were originally found at elevations between 3,200 to 3,400 meters, he said. Now they have retreated to elevations of 4,100 meters. 
  
 "They have nowhere else to retreat," he added. 
  
 It's also a solitary animal and is not as vocal as other pika species, so if predators are near, Ili pikas are not able to alert each other, Li said. 
  
 Disease may also be a factor in its decline. 
  
 Empty handed 
  
 In 1983, when Li first came across the mammal, nobody knew what it was. Two years later, Li found another two and it was declared a new species. 
  
 In the decade following, Li and his colleagues conducted a number of studies, including a census at 14 different sites. 
  
 The pika may have inspired the famous Pokemon character, Pikachu. 
  
 However, in 1992, Li left Ili to work with Xinjiang Academy of Environmental Protection in the regional capital Urumqi. 
  
 No studies were conducted on Ili pika in the following decade. No one saw the pika, either. 
  
 In 2002 and 2003, Li, with a team of volunteers, conducted a fresh census. Despite spending 37 days searching the mountains for the pikas on seven separate trips, they came up empty handed. 
  
 However, by analyzing droppings and snow tracks, Li, along with Arizona State University biologist Andrew Smith, was able to conclude that the Ili pika population had seen a dramatic decline. Together they calculated that there might be 2,000 mature animals, down from 2,900 in the early 1990s. 
  
 The research, published in 2005, recommended that the animal should be listed as endangered. 
  
 'Magic rabbit' 
  
 In 2007, Li retired early to throw himself into searching for the pika. 
  
 Scientist Li Weidong points to where he and his team spotted the Ili pika in July 2014. 
  
 Last year, he organized a group of 20 volunteers to conduct another survey with infrared cameras. 
  
 This time, on the second day of the field trip, they finally spotted a pika, who jumped and stepped over Li's feet while he was trying to photograph it. The volunteers dubbed it a "magic rabbit." 
  
 They concluded that there were fewer than 1,000 Ili pikas, said Li. 
  
 "This tiny species could be extinct any time," he said. "They don't exist in the sites where they used to be anymore." 
  
 Li funds the research with himself, along with donations and occasional grants from organizations like the World Wide Fund for Nature 
  
 He says he has spent more than $32,000 of his own money over the past three decades and he has to raise funds to pay for gas. 
  
 But what upsets Li most isn't the lack of funding. It's the lack of official recognition for the Ili, and other pikas' plight. 
  
 The Ili pika isn't included on China's List of Wildlife under Special State Protection -- part of the country's 1988 Wildlife Protection Law. 
  
 The Department for Wildlife and Forest Plants Protection, under the Ministry of Forestry, said it was in the process of updating the list but declined to give any further details. 
  
 Li and his volunteers have been calling for the establishment of a nature reserve to help protect the animal. 
  
 "I'm almost 60, and soon I won't be able to climb the Tianshan Mountains," he said. 
  
 "So I really hope that an organization will have people study and protect the Ili Pika." ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. |||||Summary:

– The Ili pika seems almost too cute to be real—but a newly released photo proves it does indeed still exist. Scientist Li Weidong and his team were lucky enough to spot one last July in China's Tianshan Mountains during a search, National Geographic reports. It was the first time in more than 20 years one had been seen. "They found it hiding behind a rock, and they realized they had found the pika," one of Li's colleagues says. Li discovered the roughly 8-inch-long creature in 1983 when he was studying infectious diseases near a Xinjiang Province mountain; he tells CNN the name he gave it is a nod to his hometown: Ili. "I sat down next to some rocks, and suddenly two bunny ears emerged from the crack of one of the rocks," he tells the BBC of that first discovery. "The little thing was staring at me, blinking at me," he continues. "I thought it was the most beautiful and bizarre creature I'd ever seen." Fellow researchers noted that the species hadn't previously been identified, and even now, only 29 of the live animals have ever been seen; China classifies it as an endangered species. Indeed, over 37 days spent looking in 2002 and 2003, Li and his team were unable to find a single pika. Today, it faces challenges to its survival thanks to human encroachment on its habitat as well as air pollution, but as Carrie Arnold notes at National Geographic, "there are no concerted efforts under way to help the Ili pika." But Li hopes he can parlay the rediscovery into the creation of protected areas for it. And as Arnold quips, "How could anyone turn down a face like that?" (Another recently spotted rare find: a fanged deer.)