One of their last sightings was by British naturalist Charles Darwin when he visited the Galapagos in 1835.ĭarwin studied the tortoises, which evolved in isolation, as he developed his theory of natural selection. The Floreana Island tortoise was widely thought to have been extinct for more than 100 years. At the time, he was believed to be the last of his kind. Last year the body of "Lonesome George," a giant Galapagos tortoise once believed to be the last of its kind, was sent to New York after its death to be embalmed and then returned home.Ī rare Pinta Island giant tortoise discovered in 1971, George was estimated to be a century old when he died June 24, 2012. Giant tortoises have life spans of up to 180 years, growing to 1.8 meters (five feet nine inches) long and nearly 400 kilograms (880 pounds) in weight. "That gives us the possibility, literally, of bringing back these species which at the moment are considered extinct," Galapagos National Park applied sciences chief Washington Tapia told AFP. New research techniques have revealed that at Wolf volcano on Isabela Island, 17 hybrid giant tortoises have been found with genes from the extinct Pinta Island tortoise, and about 280 hybrids have been found with genes from the extinct Floreana Island tortoise.Īmong those with Pinta genes, at least one pair has 80 percent of the original species' genes, while among the Floreana hybrids, many have up to 90 percent of the original species genes. The Galapagos Islands, located 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off Ecuador's Pacific coast, are famed for the large number of species that have developed there in isolation.
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