The "One Hundred Years of Solitude" on the Galapagos Islands The world's last tortoise "Lonely George"

On March 10, 1535, the Bishop of Panama sailed to Peru to mediate the war, only to encounter a storm that led to a trek, and the strong ocean currents sent them to a desert island, and the moment they landed on the island, a strong fear and surprise arose in their hearts.

The dark tide is surging and the sun is like blood, here it seems to have rained a fierce rain of stones, the air is pungent smoke, the ground is full of black lava, and the grassless wasteland is full of vicious monsters, as if they are demons crawling out of hell.

The crew dug a well on the island, only to find that the water was saltier than the sea, and a few days later, the crew died one after another. In times of crisis, they survived by eating the island's cacti and found a freshwater pool in the middle of the island, and the crew loaded it with fresh water and a huge tortoise, ate the giant turtle meat on the way, and returned it to the shell into the sea.

After 21 days of sailing, it finally arrived on the South American continent, the Galapagos, and has since been discovered by mankind, and its fate will also usher in a great change. Hidden in the depths of the ocean, Galapagos could have been a hermit, but since being discovered by humans, Galapagos has become a hiding place for pirates, a place of exile for prisoners, and a place for hunters to profit.

With the scarcity of fresh water and food on the island, these people regarded giant turtles as delicacies, wantonly captured and slaughtered, resulting in a sharp decline in the number of giant turtles, and even once on the verge of extinction.

The Galapagos is home to 16 larger islands, of which Isabella is the largest, located in the center of the archipelago and looks like a strange sea, with the high and uplifted Alsto Volcano connecting white clouds with forests, and its crater is 6.5 km in diameter.

In the middle of the verdant woodland, a group of giant turtles are lying in the sun in the ditch, they are leisurely and lazy, they do not like to move, even if they have to take two steps, they are slowly moving. The four giant tortoises are comparable to elephant legs, and the chapped skin is also similar, so they are also known as "tortoises", giant tortoises are so conspicuous and special that the first humans to land on the island named the archipelago "Galapagos", meaning "island of giant turtles".

An adult giant turtle is about 250 kilograms, equivalent to the weight of four adult men, they can easily live for more than 100 years, the "Millennium King Eighty Thousand Year Turtle" is really not wrong, they can live long mainly because of the low metabolic rate.

As a temperature-changing animal, giant turtles need to obtain energy by basking in the sun, and the huge turtle shell is like a solar photovoltaic panel, once filled with energy, it can last for a long time. After resting, they will go around to nibble on the grass, the bright sun, the emerald grass, the life of the giant turtle is leisurely and comfortable, because the water and grass here are abundant and there are few competitors, so they eat fat and strong one by one.

Despite the huge tortoiseshell that protects the body, it is difficult to defend against pervasive parasites, so the giant tortoise and the ground finches have established an extraordinary friendship. Seeing the "cleaner" come to the side, the giant turtle lifted its body in understanding and asked them to help maintain the "chassis", whether the tube was in the creaky nest or in the seam of the tortoiseshell, and the nasty blood-sucking insects could no longer be hidden.

The giant turtle closes its eyes, facing the sky on its back, looks very enjoyable, the bird's feast is its perfect Sunday, the so-called full of warmth and lust, the giant turtle seems to be no exception, after eating and sunbathing, the baby-making event is put on the agenda. Mud pit is a gathering place for giant turtles, where it is easiest to find the opposite sex, the male turtle found the favorite female turtle, which is twice the size of the female turtle, and it is really difficult to climb on the back of the other party.

The male turtle almost used the power of the flood, or could not complete the mating event, fortunately, the female turtle was very cooperative, took the initiative to climb ashore, which is the highlight moment of the male turtle. Its eyes were confused, the Harazi flowed to the ground, the mouth was still humming, and as the love heated up, the next action came naturally. After the end of the matter, the two parted ways, the male turtle did not have to do anything, sitting and waiting to be a father, the female turtle will give birth to its offspring in four months.

Food and the environment often greatly affect the process of biological reproduction and evolution, giant turtles are typical examples, Isabella Island is covered with dense plants, for giant turtles, food is pitched, if you can eat delicious food with your head down, who wants to stretch your neck and look up to hurt your brain?

The giant tortoises on this island all have domed shells, and the edges of the shells are low, which helps them crawl on the grass and do not easily hang up some branches.

However, in the southeast corner of Isabela Island, sits a smaller volcanic island, Espanola Island, which is extremely low in altitude and barren, and may not be visited by rain all year round. With the exception of some extremely tenacious cacti, it is difficult to find other edible plants, which are very tall, the rough stem has been lignified, and the long, succulent leaves and flowers tend to grow at the top.

Round-shell giant tortoises simply cannot reach this food, and arch-shell giant tortoises can successfully eat, arch-shell giant tortoises can not eat anything on the ground, and gradually develop the habit of foraging on their heads. The arched shell does not prevent them from extending their necks, and both species of giant turtles share the same ancestor, both of which were round shells at first, but had to be forced by their living environment to make changes to survive.

After generations of evolution, the giant turtle here has gradually grown a different shell, which is the result of biological adaptation to the environment. In the Galapagos Islands, giant tortoises exhibited different evolutionary processes, and at their peak there were a total of 15 species of giant tortoises, one on almost every island, and they were similar, homologous, and changed.

Giant tortoises have no natural predators in the Galapagos, but since humans landed on the island, these unsuspecting hunks have been treated as delicacies by pirates, prisoners, and whalers. Giant tortoises can survive for months without eating or drinking, so these voyagers frantically catch giant tortoises, store them in the cabin, and take them out to slaughter when they want to eat.

These slow-moving, defenseless giant tortoises were wiped out between the 16th and 20th centuries, and their number is less than 1/10 of the original. At the same time, the passing fleet also brought other dangers, smugglers hiding in dark corners quietly landed in the archipelago and flooded the islands, rats had a keen sense of smell and were good at digging holes, and they frantically stole giant turtle eggs, further exacerbating the extinction of giant turtles.

Pinta Island, located on the northern edge of the archipelago, is the most beloved anchorage for ships, and for hundreds of years, the Pinta giant tortoise was killed and eaten by hungry crews, and the scientific community generally believes that the Pinta giant tortoise was extinct as early as the early 20th century.

It wasn't until 1972 that a surprising discovery was made, and like the last Tasmanian tiger, there was the last male Pinta giant tortoise in the world, which was sent to a protected area on the island where he could spend the rest of his life safely and comfortably. Today, it has become a world-famous animal star, and it has a sad name – "Lonely George".

Already in its 80s, it faces endless loneliness every day, it is the most precious animal in the world, and this one, as if it were God's punishment for human greed and killing, let us watch a species go extinct, but there is nothing we can do. Once it is lost, it will lose this species forever, and the descendants of mankind will no longer be able to see this kind of cuteness from the real world.

Attempts to help Lone George mate have been unsuccessful for decades, most likely because there are no female turtles of the same subspecies, so the Darwin Research Station has offered a $10,000 reward to solicit suitable females.

Later, George lived with two female Isabella Island tortoises from the Wolf Volcano region of Isabella In the hope that it would be able to preserve its genotype through reproduction. The subspecies paired with George is considered to be the closest to his genes, but even if George succeeds in reproducing offspring, his offspring will no longer be purebred Pinta Island tortoises.

On 21 July 2008, it was reported that George had accidentally mated with a female tortoise, laying a total of 13 eggs, but on 11 November, the Darwin Institute announced that 80% of the eggs were too low in weight to survive. To the study's disappointment, by December 2008, the remaining eggs had failed to hatch, and X-rays showed that none of them could survive.

On June 24, 2012, the Galapagos National Park on Pinta Island off the Coast of Ecuador in South America issued a statement that "Lone George" had died and another species had disappeared from the earth forever, marking the complete extinction of the Pinta Island tortoise.

After George's death, a blackboard on the local Darwin Avenue reads – "We have witnessed extinction with our own eyes"!