The Extinct Golden Mole Was Rediscovered After 86 Years!

Jessie, the border collie, discovers a golden mole in South Africa, the first sighting in 86 years! Learn more about this amazing find.

Okay, this is really cool — a sand-swimming blind mole known as De Winton’s golden mole was thought to be extinct. There hasn’t been a recorded sighting since before World War II, but one was recently discovered on the shore of Port Nolloth, a South African coastal town. That’s 86 years after the last sighting in 1937!

A border collie named Jessie, who had been specifically trained to look for golden moles, struck “gold” (pun intended) when she discovered evidence of a golden mole swimming on the sand. Jessie would lie down when she detected the scent, and the conservationist team would collect sand and soil samples. After repeating this process many times, the crew was ultimately rewarded with an actual sighting.

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