AND then there were four.

Beloved castaway Rodger “Kentucky Joe” Bingham became the 12th member of the tribe to be tossed out on last night’s edition of “Survivor: The Australian Outback.”

It was a bittersweet ending for Bingham, who before the vote had made it known that he preferred to be booted out of the tribe before Elisabeth Filarski, the 23-year-old shoe designer from Boston, with whom he’d developed a close father-daughter relationship.

“I think about her almost as much as I think about my own family,” Bingham said.

With only a few episodes of “Survivor 2” left, Texas native Colby Donaldson appears to have a good shot at winning the $1 million prize.

Last night, he won the show’s immunity challenge for the third straight week.

At 53, the mild-mannered and well-liked Bingham was the oldest of this season’s 16 contestants and at first appeared to be the most ill-suited to surviving outdoors.

Before being cast on the show, the last time Bingham had slept outside was during a family camping trip in the 1970s.

But Bingham quickly won over the trust of his co-castaways and legions of fans with his straight-shooter personality and guts.