Extinct' Giant Tortoise Rediscovered Thanks to Abu Dhabi Grant
The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund helped to fund the genetic analysis of an elderly reptile found on the Galapagos Islands
Analysis of the Galapagos giant tortoise's DNA was funded by the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund. AFP
Scientific work funded by an Abu Dhabi organisation showed that a species of giant tortoise from the Galapagos Islands last seen a century ago and feared to have become extinct is very much alive.
The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund provided a grant to support genetic analysis of a giant tortoise found on the archipelago’s remote and mostly barren Fernandina Island about two years ago.
That showed that the female reptile was a Fernandina giant tortoise, a species last reported in 1906.
The fund provided two grants, totalling $30,000 (Dh110,196), towards the work at Yale University on the tortoise, named Fern, who was found during a mission by the Galapagos National Park Directorate and Galápagos Conservancy in February 2019.
Along with two other organisations, Re:wild and Turtle Conservancy, the study compared Fern’s DNA with archive samples from a long-dead Fernandina.