Chelonoidis niger donfaustoi
species of turtle
Chelonoidis niger donfaustoi, known as the eastern Santa Cruz tortoise, is a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise living on Santa Cruz Island, within the Galápagos. Until 2015, C. n. donfaustoi was considered conspecific with the western Santa Cruz tortoise, C. n. porteri.
Tortoise populations on Santa Cruz Island
Earlier mitochondrial DNA studies of tortoises on Santa Cruz showed up to three genetically distinct lineages found in nonoverlapping population distributions around the regions of Cerro Monturra in the northwest, Cerro Fatal in the east, and La Reserva (or La Caseta) in the southwest. Although traditionally classified together, the lineages were all shown to be more closely related to tortoises on other islands than to each other, and thus are thought to be the result of three separate colonizations of the island. Cerro Monturra tortoises are most closely related to C. n. duncanensis tortoises from Pinzón, Cerro Fatal to C. n. chathamensis from San Cristóbal, while Reserva tortoises are closer to the four southern races of Isabela. Tortoises are aided in oceanic dispersal by their ability to float with their heads up, and to survive up to six months without food or water.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chelonoidis niger donfaustoi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.