A small land snail native to Hawaii with a spiral shell, now mostly extinct due to habitat loss and introduced predators.
From Greek 'achates' (agate stone) combined with the diminutive suffix '-ella', referring to the snail's smooth, stone-like shell appearance.
Achatinella pulcherrima was so beautiful that Victorian collectors hunted it to extinction by the 1920s—a cautionary tale about how collecting and commerce can destroy the very thing people cherish.
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