Lonesome George

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Kymiie

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Has anybody else hear of ''Lonesome George''
He is the last remaining Galápagos giant tortoise!

You may have heard, scientist have tried to get him to mate and have suceeded. They found 5 eggs and are in incubation and are due to hatch middle of november.

I am so excited!

Anybody else hear about this tort?

xxx
 

andred82vert

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that's so sad....being the last of your kind in the entire world. :*(
 

dmmj

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I thought I read a while back that they thought they have located a possible female of his subspecies, but I guess it did not pan out. so sad to be the last of anything even a subspecies. :(
 

Akuma

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As far as I know, it's a hybrid cross breed they got out of those 5 eggs, so it's not exactly a big chance for the species to reproduce.
 

Stephanie Logan

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I saw Lonesome George on the David Attenborough documentary called "Life in Cold Blood", recommended on this forum by Madkins. It was an excellent movie/series, and the very last scene showed Attenborough with Lonesome George, the last of his kind, living out his life alone in his island sanctuary. It was so sad! But scientists were thrilled when they found him, because ALL of the others of his sub-species had been slaughtered for meat. He was all alone, wandering around on one of the islands, when they found him. Attenborough claimed the tortoise and he were about the same age, so 75 or 80.

I am so glad they found a companion for him, and I hope they get along well so they can remain together.
 

Stephanie Logan

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I just Googled "Lonesome George" and there were no recent articles...one from last year said all of the eggs found in the nest were infertile, but I don't know if that was an earlier clutch or the most recent prospects.
 

cdmay

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The story of Lonesome George makes for some really interesting reading. Peter Pritchard has written about the Pinta (Abingdon Island) tortoises fairly extensively as have other authors.
A very good book compiling all that is known about George was published by Henry Nicholls in 2006 titled, "Lonesome George: The Life and Loves of a Conservation Icon". I recently picked up a near mint copy with a dust jacket on Amazon.com for less than $4.00.
You can also find some other research papers regarding that population of Galapagos tortoises as well as others on Google.
But, there has not been a female Pinta tortoise found since George was discovered in 1971 and attempts to breed George with other island forms has not been successful.
 
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