OBITUARIES
In Loving Memory of the Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle
(Rafetus swinhoei)
She has gone. And with her, an entire species has passed into myth.
The last known Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle has left this world, slipping quietly from the waters she once called home. No fanfare. No farewell. Just absence. A hush where her presence used to be.
She was the final ember of a lineage that stretched across time, surviving ice ages, dynasties, and disasters. For over 100 million years, her kind moved through the rivers of Southeast Asia with slow grace and ancient knowing. She was a soft giant, one of the largest freshwater turtles on Earth, her shell alone spanning more than three feet. But it wasn’t her size that made her magnificent, it was her being. Her stillness. Her endurance. Her quiet dignity.
She lived through collapse. Through poisoned rivers and vanishing wetlands. Through shrinking territory and human noise. Conservationists tried. Truly, they did. They offered her surgeries and care, a final hope to revive a future. But her body said no. Her body said it was time.
There are no more. No eggs buried in riverbanks. No hatchlings to carry forward her story. The Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle leaves behind only water, memory, and grief.
This is not just extinction. This is the death of a witness. A being who watched the earth turn over for millions of years. She saw the rise and fall of empires. She knew the shape of time. And now, she is gone.
We mourn her not only as a species lost, but as a soul who belonged here. A relative. A teacher. A life that deserved more.
May the waters on the other side be clean. May they be quiet. May they hold her in the tenderness we failed to offer in this one.
Rest well, ancient one. You are not forgotten.
In Loving Memory of Curcuma Pygmaea
She was small. You could miss her if you weren’t paying attention.
But for those who noticed, really noticed, Curcuma pygmaea offered something rare. A bloom not meant for spectacle, but for intimacy. A pink and white gesture tucked beneath the forest canopy, arriving with the monsoon like a breath held and then released.
Native to the shaded wilds of Thailand, she lived softly in the understory. Among roots and rain and leaf-littered soil, she found her place. Brief in her blooming, generous in her presence. She never asked for much. Just moisture, shadow, and time.
Her life was a lesson in ephemerality. She reminded us that beauty isn’t always bold, that presence doesn’t require permanence. She came and went with the rhythm of the forest, a seasonal secret. The kind of friend who doesn’t need to speak much to be felt.
But even the quiet ones are not spared. The forests thinned. The soil changed. The silence that once held her became too loud with intrusion. She held on, rooted in fragments of habitat, but eventually, she faded. Not with drama. Not with a final gasp. Just... absence. No more bloom.
And now, she’s gone. Another thread snipped from the great green weave of life. Another story ended too soon.
Curcuma pygmaea is survived by memory, by those who once stooped low enough to meet her gaze, by the forest floor that cradled her, and by the ache that comes when something gentle disappears. She was not grand. But she was sacred.
Rest well, small blossom.
The forest remembers.
We will, too.
In Loving Memory of Bramble Cay Melomys
We grieve the passing of the Bramble Cay Melomys, a small and gentle presence who slipped from this world in 2016, unnoticed by most, mourned by few. Found only on a speck of land in the Torres Strait, an island just 340 meters long, the Bramble Cay Melomys lived a life shaped by stillness and survival. Rust-colored fur, tender paws, eyes wide with the kind of innocence only isolation can breed. They asked for so little. And still, we took too much.
They lived quietly, nestled among seabirds and coastal vegetation, moving with the rhythms of tide and wind. They never sought attention. They never disrupted. Their world was small, but it was enough. Until it wasn’t.
As the waters rose and the shoreline shrank, their island was consumed. The plants they depended on disappeared, slowly at first, then all at once. There were no frantic migrations, no final cry. Just a thinning presence. And then, none.
The Bramble Cay Melomys holds the sorrowful distinction of being the first mammal known to be lost to human-driven climate change. Not to catastrophe, but to creeping erosion. To our refusal to change course. A casualty of warming seas and distant policies. Of forgetfulness.
They leave behind no kin. No footprint. Just a silence. And in that silence, a question: Who else are we losing in the background noise of our progress?
We honor the Bramble Cay Melomys. May their memory unsettle us. May it awaken us. May it stay with us, not out of guilt, but out of responsibility.
Rest gently, soft one.
The sea took your home, but not your story.
We are still listening.