DNA study reveals new species of giant tortoises in the Galapagos

Giant tortoise Geochelone nigra, photographed in an artificial lake on the island of Saint Kitts, in the Galapagos archipelago, September 1, 2009 – AFP / Archives

A DNA study has determined that the giant tortoises that live on the island of São Cristóvão, in the Galapagos, correspond to a new species that has not yet been described by science, Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment said Thursday (10).

“The species of giant tortoise living on the island of São Cristóvão, known scientifically so far as Chelonoidis chathamensis, is genetically compatible with a different species,” the volume said on his Twitter account.

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Researchers at Newcastle University, Yale University, the Galapagos Province and other institutions compared the genetic material of turtles that currently live on Saint Kitts, an island 557 km long, with bones and shells collected by the California Academy of Sciences in 1906 in a cave in the island’s highlands.

When Chelonoidis chathamensis was described, the expedition group that collected the bones from the cave had not reached the lowlands northeast of São Cristóvão, where the turtles currently live.

With this, “scientists have concluded that the approximately 8,000 tortoises found today in São Cristovao cannot be Chelonoidis chathamensis, but are compatible with an entirely new breed,” the Ministry of Environment said in a statement.

The Galapagos Conservancy of America added in a bulletin that the group Chelonoidis chathamensis from the São Cristovao plateau is “almost certainly extinct” and that there are not two different species of turtle living on the island – one in the highlands and the other in the mountains and lowlands.

Dani Rueda, director of the Galapagos National Park (PNG), commented that “this discovery of the Galapagos demonstrates the ongoing genetic variation” of species in the archipelago, which is located 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador.

The study, published in the scientific journal Herdity, will continue to recover more DNA from bones and shells to clarify whether live St. Kitts turtles should be renamed.

Millions of years ago, St. Kitts may have been divided by the sea and each part had its own species of turtle.

But as soon as the water level fell, the two islands merged, and so did the turtles.

The Galapagos, a World Heritage Site with plants and animals unique to the world, is named after giant tortoises. There were originally 15 species of giant tortoises in the archipelago, three of which became extinct centuries ago, according to PNG.

In 2019, a specimen of Chelonoidis phantastica was found on Fernandina Island more than a hundred years after it was considered extinct.

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