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Galapagos tortoise fathers 800, saves species
Prior to the 18th century, there were an estimated 300,000 giant tortoises on the Galapagos islands.
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Of course, in total patriarchal fashion Diego is getting all the credit but we want to give a shoutout to the hundreds of female tortoises he’s impregnated for laying the eggs while he’s been laying the pipe.
This isn’t Diego, but we imagine his gloat face would look something like this.
Is there a way to learn what makes Diego so sex-hungry and train other endangered species like panda bears to act the same? There are now 2,000 individuals on the island when there used to be more than twice that much.
Many species of tortoise have refused to mate in captivity, and gone extinct as a result.
A “very sexually active” tortoise has nearly single-handedly saved his species from extinction. But along came Diego, the most sexually active tortoise on the planet.
As per a report on UK-based website dailymail.com, the tortoise is responsible for repopulating nearly the entire island of Espanola in the Galapagos islands, off the coast of South America. But what they do know is that he was discovered at the San Diego Zoo in the late-1950s, and was probably taken from the Espanola at some stage before that, though there’s no way to know for sure.
No one is exactly certain how he arrived in the United States, but experts think Diego must have been part of a scientific expedition. “He’s contributed enormously to repopulating the island”, Tapia said.
He is Diego, a more than 100-years-old tortoise, who has single-handedly saved his species from extinction by father 800 children.
He now “shares his enclosure with six females”, according to the AFP, because he’s not really a commitment kind of guy and likes to keep his options open, you know? But it was only recently that scientists realised just how successful he has been.
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The 13-stone, 90cm-long lover has been rewarded with retirement on neighbouring Santa Cruz island, where he was been placed with six girlfriends. The species has been spared the fate of some of its cousins, and a recent genetic study of the turtles found that about 800 of these new tortoises – roughly 40% of them – are Diego’s offspring.