Fernandina Island Galápagos tortoise

Fernandina Island Galápagos tortoise

Kingdom
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Subphylum
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Order
Suborder
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Genus
SPECIES
Chelonoidis phantasticus

Chelonoidis niger phantasticus (commonly known as the Fernandina Island Galápagos tortoise or Narborough Island giant tortoise) is a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise that was discovered in 1906 and thought extinct, until a single female was discovered living on Fernandina Island by an expedition in February 2019. In May 2021, a genetic test carried out by scientists from the California Academy of Sciences confirmed that the single female tortoise discovered in 2019 is from the subspecies Chelonoidis niger phantasticus. The subspecies name has often been misspelled as phantastica, an error introduced in the 1980s when Chelonoidis was elevated to genus and mistakenly treated as feminine, an error recognized and fixed in 2017.

Geography

Islands

Biome

Coloring Pages

References

1. Fernandina Island Galápagos tortoise Wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernandina_Island_Galápagos_tortoise
2. Fernandina Island Galápagos tortoise on The IUCN Red List site - https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/170517/128969920

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