Lonesome George Is Dead At 100 154
New submitter camperdave writes "Lonesome George, the last remaining tortoise of his kind and a conservation icon, died on Sunday of unknown causes, the Galapagos National Park said. He was thought to be about 100 years old."
Subspecies! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Poor bastard... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:DNA? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Poor bastard... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Poor bastard... (Score:5, Informative)
The official classification is that they were subspecies, actually. However, especially in modernity, the term "species" is reserved for groups that definitely can't be interbred with viable offspring (for whatever reason), so we might as well apply that here, although it's all still hazy.
I believe they were separated by about ten million years; to put that in perspective, humans and chimps split 4–8 million years ago. Since one of the major limitations in cross-reproduction between two isolated species comes directly from the molecular clock of nucleotide change (specifically: different patterns of DNA hairpinning cause the paired chromosomes to be unable to recognize each other during gamete formation), even if they had managed to reproduce, it's almost certain the offspring would've been infertile.
Re:Poor bastard... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wrong, maybe... (Score:2, Informative)
It doesn't work that way for everything. In reptiles, the females have ZW, and the males ZZ. This means when a female self fertilizes (parthenogenesis) they can produce male and female offspring, as well as WW (usually inviable).
Re:Poor bastard... (Score:5, Informative)
I have a pet turtle that has laid eggs twice now, most recently last week. It hasn't met another turtle since I bought it as a baby from the pet store, several years ago.
Re:Wrong, maybe... (Score:5, Informative)