Notiomastodon Notiomastodon Notiomastodon is an extinct proboscidean genus of gomphothere (a distant relative to modern Elephants) endemic to South America from the Pleistocene to the Holocene living for approximately . Proboscideans in South America were first described by Georges Cuvier in 1806 but he failed to give them specific names beyond "Mastodon". It was Fischer in 1814 who gave the “"mastodonte des cordillères"” specimen the first specific name ""Mastotherium hyodon"". In 1824, Cuvier gave the specific names of ""Mastodon andium"" to the ""mastodonte des cordillères"" specimen, and ""Mastodon humboldtii"" to the ""mastodonte humboldien"". Due to the Principle of Priority, this means
Extinct in the wild George on the Galapagos island of Pinta on 1 December 1971. Since then, Lonesome George has been a powerful symbol for conservation efforts in general and for the Galapagos Islands in particular. With his death on 24 June 2012, the subspecies is again believed to be extinct. With the discovery of 17 hybrid Pinta tortoises located at nearby Wolf Volcano a plan has been made to attempt to breed the subspecies back into a pure state. Not all species that are extinct in the wild are rare. For example, "Ameca splendens", though extinct in the wild, was a popular fish