Fernanda, the only known living Fernandina giant tortoise , now lives at the Galápagos National Park’s Giant Tortoise Breeding Center on Santa Cruz Island. Credit: The Galápagos Conservancy, has verified that “Fernanda” is related to a tortoise that was taken from Fernandina Island more than a century ago and that both of them are genetically distinct from all other Galápagos tortoises.
Fernanda, named after her Fernandina Island home, is the first of her species identified in more than a century. Princeton geneticist Stephen Gaughran successfully extracted DNA from a specimen collected from the same island more than a century ago and confirmed that Fernanda and the museum specimen are members of the same species and genetically distinct from all other Galápagos tortoises. Credit: The Galápagos Conservancytortoise when she was first found.
His tool is flexible enough to work on almost any ancient specimen. “The software doesn’t care if it’s a seal or a tortoise or human or Neanderthal,” he said. “Genetics is genetics, for the most part. It’s in the interpretation where it matters what kind of creature the DNA comes from.” “Stephen solves conservation mysteries, in species ranging from tortoises to pinnipeds, with the deft and careful application of genetic and bioinformatic tools,” said Graham, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.
“Fernandina is the highest of the Galápagos islands, geologically young, and is mainly a huge pile of jagged blocks of brown lava; Rosemary and I once climbed to the top,” said Grant, referring to his wife and research partner Rosemary Grant, an emeritus senior research biologist at Princeton. “At lower elevations, the vegetation occurs in island-like clumps in a sea of recently congealed lava.
The tortoise populations were decimated by European seafarers who hunted them for food, having discovered that they could keep tortoises alive on their ships with minimal effort, as the reptiles could survive with little food or water. “They were a great source of fresh meat for the sailors, but it meant that many of the species were severely overhunted,” said Gaughran. “And because they have such a long generation time, the populations have a hard time recovering quickly.