Will the last remaining male & female of one of the most endangered species on Earth manage to mate?

Lonesome George

Nature: The Loneliest Animals - view it online

Part Bachelor, part Planet of the Apes and part Adam and Eve, this mating The Loneliest Animals is a must-see.  Viewers who were riveted by Alison Argo's, Frogs: The Thin Green Line earlier this month will thrill at another opportunity to follow yet another team of dedicated scientists on their race to preserve the world's most endangered species by breeding them in captivity. 

One of China’s rarest treasures resides in a zoo in the southern city of Changsha. She is an 80-year-old Yangtze giant soft-shelled turtle, the last known female rafetus turtle in the world. At one time these turtles flourished throughout the Yangtze River valley, until modernization and overhunting all but destroyed them. Still, there is hope. When researchers discovered the last known male rafetus, 600 miles away in Suzhou, a historic blind date was arranged.

The survival of their species depends on it but will the very last two remaining Yangtze giant soft-shelled rafetus turtles ---who have never before encountered the opposite sex---  be able to recognize another, let alone know what to do? 

In the Galapagos Islands, one giant tortoise lives the most extreme kind of solitary existence. He is the last of his kind on the planet. For centuries, sailors and pirates plundered his island for tortoise meat until they thought there were no more. The only one to escape the slaughter was Lonesome George. At 90 years of age he is a poster child for a growing group of species with dwindling numbers.

Nature: The Loneliest Animals is a production of Partisan Pictures and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG and National Geographic Channel for PBS. Written and produced by Doug Shultz.

If you enjoyed this story you might like to read Frogs: The Thin Green Line