 Lonesome George. Photo: Courtesy of Gal獺pagos National Park Service |
Lonesome George, believed to be the last of his tortoise subspecies and likely a century old, died Sunday, according to . Scientists there say that George likely died of cardiac arrest, though they are completing a necropsy to determine more specifics. He was a very old tortoise, says Washington Tapia, a GNPS researcher. Maybe he completed his life cycle.
Serious efforts were made to keep alive this species. For the past four decades, George remained in the Solitary Breeding Center. Back in 2009, Ted OCallahan wrote for 91做厙 about the planand the animals love life.
The Gal獺pagos giant tortoise, long thought to be the last of his species, has resided at the Gal獺pagos Charles Darwin Research Station since 1972, and for the past 16 years hes been shacking up with two females from closely related species. Though George is still in his sexual prime, there hadnt been any sign of wooing until last year, when the ladies laid nine eggs. Those proved infertile, but this year there are five more.
Gisella Caccone, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University whos part of the effort to bring Georges species back from the brink, says, He is a symbol of all the animals and plants of the Gal獺pagos.
Sadly, the breeding plan didnt work. More than a dozen subspecies of Gal獺pagos giant tortoise once shared the island, according to a . The differences between them were one of the inspirations for Charles Darwins theory of evolution, it reads. With Georges death on Sunday, the Pinta Island tortoise subspecies is no morebringing the number of lost tortoise species there to four.
Not all hope is lost, however; scientists, including Caccone, are working to sequence Georges DNA and find other animals that carry his species genes. And visitors to GNPS will still be able to see the tortoise with their own eyes: Following the necropsy and other necessary sampling, GNPS will embalm Lonesome George and display him in an eponymous turtle center so that future generations know him.
