tampa criminal attorney: 🔦 FOUND: A firefly missing since 1983

Saturday, October 31, 2026

We wrap up Lost Species Month with yet another rediscovery, a bird with a ghostly song, and a fun way to support an upcoming expedition. 

Found in a flash

A firefly unseen since 1983 is glowing again! The Similar Firefly was rediscovered this summer – spotted near Washington, D.C. and in a nature preserve in Delaware. ✨

The Similar Firefly was one of Re:wild’s most wanted lost species, and provides hope that the 28 firefly species in the U.S. and Canada still considered lost will be found – mostly because no one has looked, not because they’re gone.

Illustrations by Mauricio Alvarez

Rediscovered Species

A call that haunts

New Zealand’s South Island Kōkako, known for its haunting song, hasn’t been documented since 2007, and before that not for 40 years. Conservationists hope rediscovering it could save the bird from extinction, as happened with its sister species, the North Island Kōkako.

Filmmaker Ryan Wilkes is finishing a short documentary, backed by the My World Film Fund and Re:wild, about Rhys Buckingham, a self-described “kōkako addict” who has spent more than 40 years searching for the bird. Now 78, Rhys may be making some of his final expeditions into New Zealand’s remote forests, and Ryan set out to capture them.

Photos courtesy of Ryan Wilkes

People continue hearing it and glimpsing it in some of the most rugged, least-explored forest in the country, but no one has been able to provide proof that it’s there. There are no photos or videos of the bird in existence today. It’s on Re:wild’s Most Wanted Lost Species list for good reason.

— RYAN WILKES
DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER AND PRODUCER 🎥

Brewing hope for a lost duck

The Pink-headed Duck, native to the wetlands of eastern India and Myanmar, has been feared extinct since the 1950s. Reported sightings in 2006 kept conservationists searching, and while a 2017 expedition in Myanmar’s Kachin State didn’t find the duck, local residents shared several intriguing accounts.

Now you can help the search. Pink Headed Duck Coffee, which began as a café at Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary before moving to New Orleans to share Myanmar specialty coffee with the world, is donating 20% of all merchandise sales through December 31 to the search team. Longtime explorers Richard Thorns and Lay Win will head back to northern Myanmar with Re:wild’s Search for Lost Species in 2027.

Support the search