When Lonesome George died in 2012 , it was mean that so did the last Pinta Island giant tortoise . Discovered roaming the rocky island in the Galapagos archipelago on his ownin 1972 , it was believed that he was the last of his subspecies . Despite a global search to find him a spouse , it testify fruitless over the 80 years of his life . Now , Yale researchers thinkthat his deoxyribonucleic acid might endure on ( or at least that of his relatives ) , diluted in intercrossed tortoise found on another island deign from tortoises thrown overboard 150 years ago .
The tortoise , originally found living on seven of the Galapagos Islands , are divided into 15 subspecies , of which only 11 survive to this daytime . In addition to the race from Pinta , those from the island of Floreana are thought to have become extinct in the mid-1800s . unluckily for the tortoises , they were prosperous target to take in and go for up to a twelvemonth upside down in the hold of whaling and pirate ship ships , furnish the sailors with refreshing nitty-gritty for their tenacious voyage . This lead to the tortoise population crashing from an estimated 250,000 in the 16th century to just 3,000 by the seventies .
Divided into two different type depending on the form of their shell , the tortoise are know as either domed or saddlebacked . It was these differences in shell morphology that first alerted the researchers to the potential that Pinta and Floreana tortoises , both of which were saddlebacked , might survive .
Giant galapagos turtle crunch on Floreana . Fotos593 / Shutterstock .
On another of the Galapagos Islands , this sentence Isabela Island , one of the race living on the side of Wolf volcano was thought to occur in both saddlebacked and domed forms . But after aim origin sample from over1,600members of this universe , investigator establish something surprising . The saddlebacked variety really turned out to be hybrids , between the original Wolf vent subspecies and those from Pinta and Floreana . Some have such a high percent of DNA from these extinct subspecies that the scientist suggest their parents could have been purebred animate being .
Now investigator have captured andairlifted 32of the tortoises with the most distinctive saddlebacks and taken them to the breeding center on Santa Cruz Island , in the hope that they will harbor the turgid balance of the thought - to - be - extinct subspecies ' DNA . First , the scientist desire to direct more tests to dissever out those descended from Pinta and those from Floreana , and then breed the ones with the high percentage from each island . This may allow for them to bring back tortoises that they argue could eventually be as high as 95 pct purebred . They then plan on releasing them back onto the original island from which their ancestors came .
But how did the original purebred tortoise get so far from the island on which they uprise ? Well , it ’s suspected that as whaling and pirate ship passed this corner of Isabela Island , they in all probability jettison the animals into the sea when they agnise they could not hold them . Surprisingly good swimmers , and able to keep their prospicient neck above the weewee , the tortoise would have swam to the nearest commonwealth . So despite eating their relatives to extinction , the sailor might have unknowingly saved the species .
