Turtles! Tortoises! Extinction!

I like reptiles. Mainly I like their genetics. Cos that's just the way I roll. But they look cool too, and their relaxed approach to life strikes a chord.
Anyway, a paper just published in PLOS One on the Galapagos Tortoises has successfully identified some individuals from a previously presumed extinct population. Using DNA samples from extinct specimens, a sample of captive (both Galapagos captive and zoo captive) DNA was run and analysed using Bayesian assignment, with 9 animals identified as having genetics similar to the extinct species. There had been some cross-breeding, as you'd expect, but it looks good - 6 females and 3 males, and one of the males possessed the presumed extinct mtDNA - which is even better.

Normally I'd be grumbling about whether or not to bother saving them, but the Galapagos Islands offer a unique opportunity to do the conservation properly - indeed another critically endangered population (down to 15) has now repopulated the species by spawning 2000, and with evidence of on-island breeding. So in this case, it's definitely worth trying to recover this species - and it helps that the tortoises are iconic.

What's particularly cool about this paper is the use of extinct species to identify presumed extinct or cryptic species extant within captive populations. Scientists frequently use extinct species DNA to help align phylogenetic trees - and it's been bread and butter for morphologists for a long time - but usually it's with the resigned sigh of 'eh we won't be seeing that one again'. So in this case, huzzah to Adalgisa and her team (and yeah, I've met her a couple of times - she wouldn't give me her job tho)!!!

B