{"id":231130,"date":"2026-02-11T17:04:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/a-giant-tortoise-extinct-for-over-a-century-has-reappeared-alive-after-several-failed-expeditions-reviving-a-historic-plan-to-save-the-species-a-symbol-of-evolution"},"modified":"2026-02-11T17:04:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:04:34","slug":"a-giant-tortoise-extinct-for-over-a-century-has-reappeared-alive-after-several-failed-expeditions-reviving-a-historic-plan-to-save-the-species-a-symbol-of-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/a-giant-tortoise-extinct-for-over-a-century-has-reappeared-alive-after-several-failed-expeditions-reviving-a-historic-plan-to-save-the-species-a-symbol-of-evolution","title":{"rendered":"A giant tortoise, extinct for over a century, has reappeared alive after several failed expeditions, reviving a historic plan to save the species, a symbol of evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-giant-tortoise-extinct-for-over-a-century-has-reappeared-alive-after-several-failed-expeditions-reviving-a-historic-plan-to-save-the-species-a-symbol-of-evolution.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Genetic sleuthing has now confirmed that she belongs to the Fernandina Island Gal\u00e1pagos giant tortoise, <a href=\"https:\/\/discovery.princeton.edu\/2022\/12\/11\/fantastic-giant-tortoise-believed-extinct-confirmed-alive-in-the-galapagos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chelonoidis phantasticus<\/a>, a lineage thought lost since a lone male was collected in 1906.<\/p>\n<p>Only two individuals of this lineage have ever been found, the museum specimen from the early twentieth century and Fernanda. To make sure she was not a stray tortoise washed in from another island, researchers sequenced her entire <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/news-releases\/955246\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">genome<\/a> and compared it with DNA extracted from the century-old male and from all other living Gal\u00e1pagos tortoise species.<\/p>\n<p>The analyses showed that Fernanda and the museum male form their own distinct branch, separate from the rest of the archipelago\u2019s giants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Genetic sleuthing has now confirmed that she belongs to the Fernandina Island Gal\u00e1pagos giant tortoise, Chelonoidis phantasticus, a lineage thought lost since a lone male was collected in 1906. Only two individuals of this lineage have ever been found, the museum specimen from the early twentieth century and Fernanda. To make sure she was not [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,385,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-evolution","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}