It’s nice to be able to
draw attention to some good news, especially when it’s the finding of a species
which it was thought that we’d predated to extinction. My attention was drawn
to this news by a BBC article that had picked up a letter in the current issue
of Current Biology (1,2).
A large international team
of Garrick et al had been rummaging
around Volcán Wolf on Isabela Island of the Galapagos. This is the Galapagos’s
highest peak on the northern end if Isabela. The team have been searching out
the giant tortoises and checking the parenthood. It seems that they have found
a significantly large number of hybrids. They were checking out Chelonoidis becki when they found that
some Chelonoidis elephantopus had
been courting.
Now C. elephantopus was born
and bred on Floreana Island, well off to the south-east of Isabela and were
eaten up by pirates and whalers in the nineteenth century. The problem is that
they don’t have to eat a lot and can last for about 3 months without getting too
grumpy, so they were hoisted aboard as pre-packed fresh meat with a use by date
of at least three months from shipping.
C. elephantopus has a distinct shell. It is called a ‘saddle back’ and
is distinctly different from the usual run of giant tortoises with their high
domed shells. The suggestion is that some were shipped at Floreana and somehow
escaped or were set free when some ships sailed on to Isabela. Maybe the crews
preferred iguanas or got bigger C beckis.
The best news is that some
of the hybrids were only 15 tears old and came from pure-bred parents. DNA
indicated that both male and female C.
elephantopus were lurking about in
the undergrowth. Being very long lived, they presumably have very long memories,
so after their last experience with sailors, it’s not surprising that they’re
keep their heads down.
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16467397
- http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(11)01376-5
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