This finding may provide guidance in finding a mate for Lonesome George, who so far has failed to reproduce.ДNA was extracted from blood stored in 100 mM Tris/100 mM EDTA/2% SDS buffer by using the Easy DNA extraction kit (Invitrogen). They have sequences identical to Lonesome George, consistent with his being the last survivor of his subspecies. To rule out a possible recent transplant of Lonesome George, we sequenced DNA from three tortoises collected on Pinta in 1906.

Most unexpectedly, the lone survivor of the abingdoni subspecies from Pinta Island (вЂњLonesome GeorgeвЂќ) is very closely related to tortoises from San CristГіbal and EspaГ±ola, the islands farthest from the island of Pinta. Our data suggest that the four named southern subspecies on the largest island, Isabela, are not distinct genetic units, whereas a genetically distinct northernmost Isabela subspecies is probably the result of a separate colonization. chilensis and the GalГЎpagos lineage probably occurred 6 to 12 million years ago, before the origin of the oldest extant GalГЎpagos island. The closest living relative to the GalГЎpagos tortoise is not among the larger-bodied tortoises of South America but is the relatively small-bodied Geochelone chilensis, or Chaco tortoise. Here we report a phylogenetic reconstruction based on mitochondrial DNA sequences from GalГЎpagos tortoises and Geochelone from mainland South America and Africa.

Perhaps the most enduring debate in reptile systematics has involved the giant GalГЎpagos tortoises ( Geochelone nigra), whose origins and systematic relationships captivated Charles Darwin and remain unresolved to this day.

Pinta tortoises