Galapagos Tortoise

choi

Elizabeth Weise, Galapagos Tortoise May Not Be Gone After All; DNA tests reveal offspring of spcies long thought extinct. USA Today, Jan 12, 2012 (title and date in print).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/wor ... -extinct/52467768/1

Note:
(a) Galápagos Islands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_Islands
(972 km (525 nmi) west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part; Floreana Island was named after Juan José Flores, the first President of Ecuador, during whose administration the government of Ecuador took possession of the archipelago; Isabela Island was named in honor of Queen Isabela; The Galápagos Islands first appeared on the maps, of Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius, in about 1570.[9] The islands were named "Insulae de los Galopegos" (Islands of the Tortoises) in reference to the giant tortoises found there; Ecuador annexed the Galápagos Islands on in 1832)

(i) Juan José Flores served as president of Ecuador a couple of times, whose first presidency lasted 1830-1834.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_José_Flores
(ii) In fact, the Spanish noun galápago means "saddle." The archipelago name is for the saddle shape of the tortoise shell.

(b) For Chelonoidis elephantopus, see Galápagos tortoise
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_tortoise
(The current species designation of nigra ("black" – Quoy & Gaimard, 1824b[3]) was resurrected in 1984[33] after it was discovered to be the senior synonym (an older taxonomic synonym taking historical precedence) for the then commonly used species name of elephantopus ("elephant footed" – Harlan, 1827[12]). The use of nigra is explained by Quoy and Gaimard's Latin description: "Testudo toto corpore nigro", meaning "tortoise with completely black body".)

(c) Garrick RC et al, Genetic Rediscovery of an Extinct Galápagos Giant Tortoise Species. Current Biology, 22: R10-R11. http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(11)01376-5

One may click right column to read full text free.