jumbo tortoise currently living on San Cristóbal of the Galápagos Archipelago may need a new scientific name , as researcher had mistakenly conflated them with an out tortoise species .
In 1906 , an expedition from the California Academy of Sciences explored the southwest Highlands of Scotland of San Cristóbal , a 346 - mile - long ( 557 - kilometer ) island in the Galápagos . There , they happen upon a antecedently strange species of elephantine tortoise , which was after hold the scientific name Chelonoidis chathamensis . The team brought back sample in the sort of osseous tissue and shells , which have been kept at a museum ever since .
Importantly , the expedition did n’t venture down to the island ’s northeast lowland , where thousands of giant tortoise live today . For year , scientist had assume that the lowland tortoise were of the same coinage , C. chathamensis , but new DNAevidencepublished in the scientific diary Heredity suggests this was a mistaken assumption and the lowland tortoises are of an solely unlike filiation .
A San Cristóbal Island giant tortoise living in the lower reaches of the island.Photo: James Gibbs, Galápagos Conservancy
The whirl in this story is that C. chathamensis “ is almost certainly extinct,”accordingto the Galápagos Conservancy , a chemical group of researchers who , along with scientist from Newcastle University and Yale University , performed the genetic psychoanalysis . They compare genetic material from the tortoises currently go on San Cristóbal to DNA extracted from the museum sampling , finding that the two set did not match . The DNA of the highland tortoises was unique but closely related to giant tortoise species found on the Galápagos islands of Española and Pinta .
That means the “ 8,000 tortoises live on San Cristóbal today may not be justly call C. chathamensis at all , since they are another taxon ( or lineage ) wholly that has no formal verbal description or scientific name , ” the Conservancy sound out , adding that “ the extant giant tortoise species on San Cristóbal Island in Galápagos represents a genetically typical and undescribed group of being … Modern to skill . ”
The determination suggests San Cristóbal was home to two dissimilar species of gargantuan tortoise , each having their own nesting area ( one in the highlands and one in the lowlands ) , until C. chathamensis went nonextant around the midpoint of the twentieth C . million of years ago , gamey sea levels may have cut off San Cristóbal in half , allowing for the phylogeny of freestanding species on the two land masses .
San Cristóbal Island, showing the locations of the two species of giant tortoise.Image: James Gibbs, Galápagos Conservancy
Fifteen species of giant tortoise once be in the Galápagos , located 600 miles ( 1,000 km ) off the Ecuadorian coast . At least four species have expire out , the outcome of invading puke , human search , and other factor . An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 giant tortoises experience across the archipelago today .
The research worker design to gather more DNA evidence from San Cristóbal and perform further tests to corroborate the new result . Should future grounds confirm the comportment of two species , scientists will have to come up up with a young name for the lowland tortoises .
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