Tortoise spends 50 years having sex, saves entire species from extinction
A giant tortoise named Diego has single handedly saved his own species from extinction by spending the last 50 years making more than 800 babies.
Diego was sent to the Galapagos Islands with the hopes that he would breed with some of the 12 females on the island of Espanola.
Before his arrival, there were only two other males of his kind, but they were too spread out to reproduce.
Diego, who is more than 100 years old, certainly played his part in the breeding program, with scientists estimating he has fathered more than 800 offspring.
"He's a very sexually active male reproducer. He's contributed enormously to repopulating the island," tortoise preservation specialist Washington Tapia told AFP.
"We did a genetic study and we discovered that he was the father of nearly 40 per cent of the offspring released into the wild on Espanola.”
Diego is a type of species native to Espanola known as a Chelonoidis hoodensis. He weighs in at 80 kilograms and measures 1.5 metres tall.
The hero tortoise was taken from the Galapagos Islands sometime between 1900 and 1959, before he returned home in 1976 and put in the breeding program.
Thanks to the program and Diego’s mammoth efforts, his species no longer faces extinction.
News break – September 16
