Photo provided by the Galapagos National Park on March 10, 2022 of a turtle Chelonoidis chathamensis on San Cristobal Island, Galapagos
Galapagos: a new species of turtle detected by DNA – Gallery
Photo provided by the Galapagos National Park on March 10, 2022 of a turtle Chelonoidis chathamensis on San Cristobal Island, Galapagos
Photo provided by the Galapagos National Park on March 10, 2022 of a turtle Chelonoidis chathamensis on San Cristobal Island, Galapagos
A DNA study has revealed that the giant tortoises that live on San Cristobal Island in the Galapagos correspond to a new species that has not yet been recorded by science, Ecuador’s environment ministry said Thursday.
“The species of giant tortoise that inhabits San Cristobal Island, until now known scientifically as Chelonoidis chathamensis, genetically matches a different species,” the ministry said on Twitter.
Researchers from Newcastle University, Yale University, the American NGO Galapagos Conservancy and other institutions compared the genetic material of turtles currently living on San Cristobal, a 557 km long island, with bones and carapaces collected in 1906 by the California Academy of Sciences from a cave in the highlands of the island.
At the time of the description of Chelonoidis chathamensis, the group of expeditionaries who collected the bones from the cave had never reached the lowlands northeast of San Cristóbal, where the tortoises live today.
As a result, “scientists have concluded that the nearly 8,000 turtles that exist today in San Cristobal may not be Chelonoidis chathamensis, but correspond to a completely new lineage”, explained the Ministry of the Environment in a statement. communicated.
Galapagos Conservancy added in a bulletin that the Chelonoidis chathamensis group from the San Cristobal Highlands “is almost certainly extinct” and that the island was home to not one but two different varieties of turtles, one living in the highlands and the another in the lowlands.
The study, which was published in the scientific journal Heredity, will continue with the recovery of more DNA from the bones and shells to determine if the living San Cristobal turtles should be given a new name.
Millions of years ago San Cristobal was perhaps bisected by the sea and each part had its own species of chelonian. But when the water level dropped, the two islands merged, and so did their turtles.
The Galapagos, a World Heritage Site with flora and fauna unique in the world, owe their name to the giant tortoises. There were originally 15 species of giant chelonians in the archipelago, three of which became extinct centuries ago, according to the Galapagos National Park (PNG).
In 2019, a specimen of Chelonoidis phantastica was found on Fernandina Island following more than 100 years when the species was considered extinct.
AFP
