New species of giant tortoise discovered on Galapagos

Scientists have determined the existence of a second species of giant tortoise on the island of Santa Cruz, in the Galapagos archipelago, some 1,000 km off the coast of Ecuador, officials said on Wednesday.

The Galapagos National Park (PNG) issued a press release stating the new species had been named "Chelonoidis donfaustoi" in honor of Fausto Llerena, the historic caretaker of George, a Galapagos' emblematic giant tortoise who died in 2012 at the estimated age of 102.

Until now, only one species of giant tortoise had been known to exist on the island of Santa Cruz.

A group of national and international investigators, led by Gisella Caccone, an expert in ecology and evolutionary biology, from the University of Yale, succeeded in finding the "archipelago had one more species of giant tortoise," according to the PNG.

It added that, historically, the giant tortoises had been believed to belong to the same species but that new genetic studies had revealed this new reality about the tortoises inhabiting the east of the island.

"The identification of this new species will increase efforts to protect and restore the tortoise population on the eastern part of Santa Cruz island," wrote Caccone in the press release.

Estimations by Ecuadorian scientist, Washington Tapia, revealed that the western tortoise population on Santa Cruz numbers in the thousands, while the newly separated population in the east is only in the hundreds.

This brings to 15 the number of giant tortoise species across the archipelago, among which four are extinct, the PNG said. Endi