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February 27, 2026<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 180 years after disappearing, a tortoise returns to its Gal\u00e1pagos home<\/p>\n The release of 158 specially bred Floreana giant tortoises is a win for both the animal and its long-lost island ecosystem<\/p>\n By Rachel Nuwer edited by Andrea Thompson<\/span><\/p>\n One of the Floreana hybrid tortoises released onto Floreana Island, part of the Gal\u00e1pagos.<\/p>\n The Gal\u00e1pagos Islands are famous for their biodiversity, especially their giant tortoises. But around 180 years ago Floreana Island lost its unique tortoise, the Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), a subspecies of the Gal\u00e1pagos giant tortoise. After it fell victim to the arrival of sailors, pirates and a host of invasive species, it was thought to be extinct.<\/p>\n In 2000, however, scientists made a shocking discovery: a population of tortoises 70 miles away on Isabela Island looked strikingly like the Floreana giant tortoise with their telltale saddle-shaped shells. Genetic testing confirmed these were hybrid tortoises descended from Floreana giant tortoises that must have accidentally wound up on the island after being put onboard a ship for food.<\/p>\n Now, for the first time in nearly 200 years, tortoises with Floreana ancestry have returned to Floreana Island, following the release last week of 158 individuals reared in a special captive breeding program.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Floreana tortoises released back onto their native island.<\/p>\n \u201cWatching the tortoises step onto Floreana and start exploring was incredibly moving,\u201d says James Gibbs, vice president of science and conservation for the nonprofit Gal\u00e1pagos Conservancy. \u201cIt felt like the end of a 26-year effort but at the same time, a beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n In the carefully managed breeding program, Gibbs and his colleagues paired adults collected from Isabela Island based on genetic testing to maximize their offspring\u2019s Floreana ancestry. While the resulting animals are not exact genetic replicas of their ancestors, they do carry much of the original Floreana lineage, Gibbs says.<\/p>\n Gal\u00e1pagos Conservancy staff and Gal\u00e1pagos National Park rangers hike across the landscape, carrying tortoises in crates to the strategically selected release sites.<\/p>\n In addition to being a win for the animals themselves, the tortoise\u2019s return will also be a boon for the island, Gibbs says. The Gal\u00e1pagos tortoise is a what is called a keystone species, dispersing seeds and helping to regenerate forests, so the hope is that its return will begin to push the island more closely toward its original ecological state.<\/p>\n “Any time you can return an ‘ecosystem engineer’ like giant tortoises to an environment where they once roamed, we expect good things to happen,” says Rick Hudson, president emeritus of the non-profit Turtle Survival Alliance, who was not involved in the research. After Aldabra tortoises were brought back to Mauritius, for example, native plants returned and introduced vegetation decreased. “Over time, the habitat begins to resemble its former state,” Hudson says. “We expect similar results on Floreana.”<\/p>\n \u201cThe island\u2019s ecosystems and evolutionary lineage is restarting, and the biological processes that shaped Floreana are coming back again,\u201d Gibbs says. \u201cIt\u2019s a powerful reminder that sometimes what seems lost forever is simply awaiting the chance to return.\u201d<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American<\/span> has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American<\/span> subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm <\/span>always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/span>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 27, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm 180 years after disappearing, a tortoise returns to its Gal\u00e1pagos home The release of 158 specially bred Floreana giant tortoises is a win for both the animal and its long-lost island ecosystem By Rachel Nuwer edited by Andrea Thompson One of the Floreana hybrid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[14527,16359,533,19831,23403,19832],"class_list":{"0":"post-45449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-believed","9":"tag-extinct","10":"tag-free","11":"tag-galapagos","12":"tag-roaming","13":"tag-tortoise"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
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