Meet Diego New King of the Galapagos Islands Chelonoidis hoodensis species giant turtle.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Diego is a Galapagos tortoise who came to the San Diego Zoo in the 1930s and was sent back to the Galapagos Islands in the 1970s to be part of their breeding program. Since then, Diego has fathered over 1,000 offspring, thus earning the nickname "Super Diego."

Meet Diego New King of the Galapagos Islands Chelonoidis hoodensis species giant turtle.

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Lonesome George's inability to reproduce made him a global symbol of efforts to halt the disappearance of species. And while his kind died with him, that doesn't mean the famed giant tortoise leaves no heir apparent.

The Galapagos Islands have another centenarian who fills a shell pretty well. He's Diego, a prolific, bossy, macho reptile.

Unlike Lonesome George, who died June 24, Diego symbolizes not a dying breed but one resurrected.

Having sired hundreds of offspring, Diego has been central to bringing the Espanola Island type of tortoise back from near extinction, rangers at Galapagos National Park say.

Diego was plucked from Espanola by expeditioners sometime between 1900 and 1930 and wound up in the San Diego Zoo in California, said the head of the park's conservation program, Washington Tapia.

When the U.S. zoo returned him to the Galapagos in 1975, the only other known living members of his species were two males and 12 females.

Chelonoidis hoodensis — some consider it species, some a subspecies — had been all but destroyed, mostly by domestic animals introduced by humans that ate their eggs.

So Diego and the others were placed in a corral at the park's breeding center on Santa Cruz, the main island in the isolated archipelago whose unique flora and fauna helped inspire Charles Darwin's work on evolution.

Diego was so dominant and aggressive, bullying other males with bites and shoves, that he had to be moved eight years later to his own pen, with five of the females. The reptiles are not monogamous.

"Diego is very territorial, including with humans," said his keeper, Fausto Llerena. "He once bit me, and two weeks ago he tried (again) to bite me. When you enter his pen, Diego comes near and his intentions aren't friendly."

A U.S.-based herpetologist for the Galapagos Conservancy, Linda Cayot, says Diego is the most sexually active of the bunch because he's the biggest and the oldest of the males.

"In tortoises, the biggest dominates. It's not that the others aren't active. It's just that he's dominant," she says.

Tapia said it is impossible to know Diego's age, but he is well over 100. He estimates Diego is the father of 40 to 45 percent of the 1,781 tortoises born in the breeding program and placed on Espanola island.

At least 14 species of giant tortoise originally inhabited the islands 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) off Ecuador's Pacific coast and 10 survive, their features developing in sync with their environment, as Darwin observed.

Espanola, which encompasses 50 square miles (130 square kilometers), is arid, and in order to reach vegetation high off the ground, the tortoises there developed the longest legs and necks of any other species in the archipelago.

Diego is nearly 3 feet (90 centimeters) long, weighs 176 pounds (80 kilograms), and has a black saddleback shell.

Llerena says tourists take to him automatically, if from a safe distance.

"I think he's going to be the successor to Lonesome George, the new favorite."

A visit to Lonesome George became de rigueur for celebrities and common folk alike among the 180,000 people who annually visit the Galapagos. Among his last visitors were Richard Gere, Prince Charles of England and Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and family.

Before humans arrived in the Galapagos, the six islands were home to tens of thousands of giant tortoises. 

Numbers were down to about 3,000 in 1974, but the recovery program run by the national park and the Charles Darwin Foundation has succeeded in increasing the overall population to 20,000.

The offspring of Diego and his male rivals in the corrals of Santa Cruz have themselves been reproducing in the wild on Espanola island since 1990.

"We can now say that the reproduction of this species is guaranteed," said Tapia.

Cayot was asked whether having so many children of the same few parents interbreeding on Espanola could hurt the breed's long-term prospects.

"It could be a problem," she said. "But it is more important to save the species."

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Lonesome George the last of the Galapagos Geochelone abigdoni species died.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Lonesome George the last of the Galapagos Geochelone abigdoni species died.

Sad day in our Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, Lonesome George the last  Galapagos Geochelone abigdoni species died at 100 years old.

He lived in La Pinta Island part of the group of islands which make the Galapagos Islands.

The Galapagos National Park director, Edwin Naula, reported that the turtle morning dead in his yard. His caretaker, Fausto Llerena, found him still warm, but lifeless.

 So far, performed the analysis of the remains of Lonesome George, so named because there was no copy of his subspecies. We attempted to mate with the islands of Isabela tortoises, they even lay eggs.

 However, the eggs were not viable and there were no descendants of George, whose age was estimated on 100. Naula estimated that the death was due to a stoppage of the heart, typical of the turtle and would have completed its life cycle. However, wait until the results of the autopsy to officially determine what caused the death. Naula reports that, until Saturday night, George was in good condition. 

George failed to find in 35 years that a female mate, and his last hopes rested on some miracle of science, which did not occur. Even a multinational team led by researchers at Yale University identified a tortoise that had half of their genes in common with George, as reported in the journal Current Biology. The researchers expected that new genetic tests could find a genetically pure Pinta tortoise among the 2 000 who live in Isabela, and thus begin a breeding program with Lonesome George. 

There was no success in these efforts to perpetuate the descendants of George, who was part of Guiness book as planet's unique animal. He refused to mate with females of other subspecies, and when at last he succeeded, the eggs were not fertile. George was six feet long and weighed 88 kilos. It was the last pure specimen of the species Geochelone abingdoni. Four of the 14 species of giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands, which helped Charles Darwin develop his theory of natural selection have become extinct in recent decades because of hunting and competition for food that suffered by hundreds of goats introduced there in the early 50's. 

The Lonesome George was found on Pinta island in 1972, when it was believed that the species of turtles on this island was totally extinct. Since then the turtle has been part of captive breeding program of the Galapagos National Park Service. Edwin Naula, director of Galapagos National Park, said that by July this year, has planned an international workshop to develop the management strategy of turtle populations in the next ten years in order to achieve restoration. "The workshop will be held in honor of Lonesome George".


(His body will be stuffed for display)

Source: ElComercio Ecuador and ElUniverso Ecuador

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