Extinct 'fantastic giant tortoise' found alive on the Galápagos Islands

Believed to be extinct for more than a century, a rare species of giant tortoise is in fact still alive.

Scientists assumed that the chelonoidis phantasticus had died out more than a century ago. The species is better known as the ‘fantastic giant tortoise’ and is native to the Galápagos Fernandina island.

The only known specimen was discovered in 1906.

But in 2019, Princeton researchers discovered a lone female tortoise on the island that hinted that the species might live on.

Last week, they finally proved that the two specimens are related.

Giant tortoises can weigh as much as 417 kg and can grow up to 1.3m. They usually live between 80 and 120 years.

There are 14 different species of giant Galápagos tortoise, all descended from a single ancestor - and all listed on the IUCN Red List as either vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered or extinct.

In 2019, researchers on Fernandina island discovered Fernanda, a lone female settled on an isolated vegetation patch.

After comparing Fernanda’s DNA to that of the ‘fantastic giant tortoise’ specimen collected in 1906, the team confirmed that the pair are members of the same species.

"Like many people, my initial suspicion was that this was not a native tortoise of Fernandina Island,” said Princeton University’s Stephen Gaughran, the researcher in charge of sequencing the genome.

“We saw - honestly, to my surprise - that Fernanda was very similar to the one that they found on that island more than 100 years ago, and both of those were very different from all of the other islands' tortoises.”

Researchers estimate that Fernanda is around 50 years old.

The new discovery gives researchers “hope”, said Adalgisa Caccone, who helped conduct the research.

"The finding of one alive specimen