Text/Vision Science Popularization
Do you believe that creatures that have been declared extinct have reappeared in the human world? Normally, the probability of this event occurring is very small, but this small probability event was encountered by animal protection scholar Washington Tabia.
She found a giant tortoise on the island of Fernandina, the last time it appeared, or in 1906, 115 years later, it appeared on the island again. With the reappearance of extinct animals, should we be happy or worried?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="6" > what is this "giant tortoise"? </h1>
This is a tortoise, some people call it the Fernandina Giant Tortoise, it is also called the Galapagos tortoise, because it is a creature unique to the Galapagos Islands.
This turtle eats plants such as cacti, fruits, water ferns, leaves and grasses, which it can use to fill its stomach and can live in a relatively arid environment. After all, it is a turtle, so it moves very slowly, only moving about 260 meters per hour.
In fact, just from the turtle's habitat, it is not difficult to see that it is not simple. Why? If you understand life and its evolution, then you must know about the Galapagos Islands.
Yes, the archipelago is where Darwin lived for more than a month, and he found more than 400 exotic animals on the archipelago and proposed the "Evolution" conjecture.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="30" > the extinction of the giant tortoise in Fernandina is controversial</h1>
I think many people don't know that the reason for the extinction of this giant tortoise in the first place was that it was so delicious that it was wantonly hunted by humans.
In 1906, the last known giant tortoise, Fernandina, was discovered and brought back to the United States to be made into specimens and placed in the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California.
Although the giant tortoise was considered extinct at the time, this claim was controversial because expeditions later found traces of suspected large turtles in the Galapagos Islands.
In 1964, it was suspected that feces and bite marks on cacti were found on the giant tortoise of Fernandina, and evidence of tortoise tracks like this appeared frequently, but no one really saw it.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="31" > Tabia decided to find the animal based on these clues</h1>
Washington Tabia, a member of the Galapagos Conservation Association, decided to travel to the Galapagos Islands in February 2019 with a team to explore the truth.
Fortunately, the kung fu paid off, they found the tortoise feces on the way to find the trail, and after a series of analyses, it was likely to be the excrement of the giant tortoise.
So I followed the traces of these excrement and found the giant turtle Fernandina hiding in the shade of the trees, and according to its physical characteristics, it was speculated that the turtle was most likely over 100 years old.
When they wanted to continue their search, due to limited resources, no second one was found, but even so, the reappearance of the Fernandina giant tortoise on earth was already a very fortunate thing.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="32" > extinction giant turtle reappears on earth, is it joy or worry? </h1>
It is understood that this reappearing giant tortoise is a female, and after Tabia found it, he immediately extracted the DNA from the giant turtle's body and compared it with the specimen turtle in San Francisco, usa, and the results proved that they were the same species.
It is indeed a happy thing to see the reappearance of extinct creatures, but at the same time we also have a point of concern, after all, only this one has been found, how to let it breed offspring and continue genes? The first and most important thing is to help it find a suitable "male partner".
At last:
In fact, the extinction of many animals on the earth is caused by human greed and wanton cruelty, and perhaps the reappearance of this giant tortoise of Fernandina is also giving human beings a chance to "atone for their sins".
But while protecting this animal, we can't ignore the existence of other animals, because scientists have been discussing the sixth mass extinction, do you think it may happen?