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With lifespans in the wild of over 100 years, it is one of the longest-lived vertebrates. Captive Galapagos tortoises can live up to 177 years. [5] For example, a captive individual, Harriet, lived for at least 175 years. Spanish explorers, who discovered the islands in the 16th century, named them after the Spanish galápago, meaning "tortoise ...
In February 2019, a tortoise subspecies once thought to have been extinct since 1906, the Fernandina giant tortoise, was discovered on its namesake island in the Galápagos. [26] It is estimated that 20,000–25,000 wild tortoises live on the islands today. [25] [better source needed]
Santa Cruz giant tortoise Bottlenose dolphins jumping off the Galápagos Islands. One of the best-known animals is the Galápagos tortoise, which once lived on ten of the islands. Now, some tortoise species are extinct or extinct in the wild and they live on six of the islands. The tortoises have an average lifespan of over 130 years.
The marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is also among the largest iguanas in the world, [78] and the largest reptile on Galapagos Islands after the Galapagos land iguana, not including turtles reaching a maximum total length of 1.4 m (4.59 ft), a SVL of from 12 till 56 cm (from 4.72 till 22 in) [82] [83] and a mass of from 1 to 12 kg (2.2 ...
Van Denburgh, 1907 : Expedition of the California Academy of Sciences to the Galapagos Islands, 1905–1906. I. Preliminary descriptions of four new races of gigantic land tortoises from the Galapagos Islands. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, ser. 4, vol. 1, p. 1–6
The now-extinct West Indian radiation is thought to group with the Chaco and Galapagos tortoises but is significantly basal to both, and was a rather evolutionary distinct lineage, having diverged well before any of the modern species in the genus did and only 7 mya after the divergence of Chelonoidis from African tortoises.
General American usage agrees; turtle is often a general term; tortoise is used only in reference to terrestrial turtles or, more narrowly, only those members of Testudinidae, the family of modern land tortoises; and terrapin may refer to turtles that are small and live in fresh and brackish water, in particular the diamondback terrapin ...
The wild reproduction is successful in the east, but in the western-southwestern area, rats, dogs, cats and pigs are present as predators. It is one of the most threatened of the existing subspecies, and 20 adults were taken into captivity for a breeding program in 1998 following the threat of a volcanic eruption from the nearby Cerro Azul ...