Yesterday, Lonesome George passed away. George was a Pinta Island tortoise (or Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni). Lonesome George was a well-known, powerful international symbol for conservation. But now, with the passing of George, his subspecies has gone extinct.
So, farewell to Lonesome George, the last of his kind.
Or was he?
In 2007, DNA analysis of giant tortoises in the Galápagos archipelago showed that on a nearby island, Isabela Island, hybrids between George's subspecies and a closely related one (
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