Lonesome George May Be A Father
The news of Lonesome George may be a father soon it will be one of the greatest conservation events of the year if it happens.
On July 21, 2008 Galapagos Park rangers found a nest in George’s corral with nine eggs—three of which were intact, two of which had tiny cracks, and four of which were broken entirely. Eight more eggs were found in a new nest the morning of August 5th—all eight eggs were in good condition.
There are now a total of 13 eggs in the incubators: 5 from the first tortoise and 8 laid by the second. It will be another 120-130 days before the incubation process is completed and before it is known if the eggs are viable.
George is the last remaining Pinta Island tortoise, was brought to the Research Station in 1972 with the hopes that he might breed with tortoises similar to the Pinta subspecies. His two new companions were brought from Volcán Wolf (the northernmost volcano on Isabela Island) because morphologically they were the most similar to Pinta tortoises. We now know, sources from The Galapagos Conservancy say, through genetic studies that tortoises from Española are genetically closest to the subspecies from Pinta. We also now know that a hybrid tortoise was discovered on Volcán Wolf (Isabela) which shares half of its genetic material with Geochelone nigra abingdoni, as sources from The Galapagos Conservancy say.
For the full story, please check the link below:
http://www.galapagos.org/2008/index.php?id=139