lomesome george

Lonesome George

Lonesome George: The 200 pound, 5 foot long reptile was thought to be in the prime of his life around 100 years old, which is not particularly old for a giant tortoise.George was the last remaining tortoise in his particular subspecies, Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni, which is believed to date back some 10 million years. The giant tortoises had evolved like many creatures on the isolated Galapagos archipelago to become large and trusting.

Scientists had been trying to get George to mate since 1993, when they introduced two female tortoises of a different subspecies into his pen. They laid eggs twice, but they were infertile.

The pen where George lived was visited by thousands of tourists every year, who often had to scramble with each other to take pictures of one of the rarest creatures on Earth. Tortoises were hunted for their meat by sailors and fishermen to the point of extinction, while their habitat has been eaten away by goats introduced from the mainland. Some 20,000 giant tortoises still live on the Galapagos.