Scientists hope to restore extinct Galapagos tortoise (AP/ABC) [View all]

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By The Associated Press
QUITO, Ecuador — Sep 13, 2017, 6:30 PM ET

Scientists in Ecuador's Galapagos islands are hoping to restore a tortoise species believed extinct since the 1800s.

The Chelonoidis elephantopus lived on Floreana Island and was captured by seamen in large numbers for food during long journeys across the Pacific. The species is thought to have disappeared shortly after Charles Darwin's celebrated visit to the treasured archipelago.

But a group of international scientists who collected 1,700 blood samples from tortoises on Isabel Island farther north during a research expedition in 2012 made a surprising discovery: 80 had genetic traces of the lost species.

"This is a species that was considered extinct for 160 years," Washington Tapia, one of the scientists studying the tortoises, told The Associated Press. "We didn't imagine what we would find."

Researchers with the Galapagos Conservancy and the Galapagos National Park are now trying to restore the species by selecting 20 specimens with higher amounts of the Floreana tortoise in its DNA to reproduce.
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more: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/scientists-hope-restore-extinct-galapagos-turtle-species-49828649