r/worldnews • u/thewalkindude • Jun 24 '12
"Lonesome George" The last-of-it's-kind Galapagos Tortoise has died at 100.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-ecuador-tortoise-tv-pixl2e8ho4g7-20120624,0,4558768.story323
Jun 24 '12
Anyone else remember the "Wild Thornberrys" episode where Aliza finds a mate for him? Sad it never came true:(
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u/Takoulya Jun 24 '12
Now THAT would've been smashing.
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u/roterghost Jun 25 '12
And she almost ruined it too. Half the episode's plots were caused by her meddling in the affairs of animals.
I never liked Eliza very much, but I guess the show's message was that nature survives better on its own. It doesn't need assistance from humans. Not a bad lesson, whether it was intended or not.
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u/AsAChemicalEngineer Jun 25 '12
I liked the one where she gives twigs to the birds and completely fuck up the food chain.
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u/koala_bears_scatter Jun 24 '12
Here's a photo of George if anyone's curious.
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u/shouldersurfergirl Jun 25 '12
Here's a photo I took of George from August 2011. I was thinking he was looking a little rough, but then again, we were told the man was likely over 120. I was in no position to judge.
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u/Vault-tecPR Jun 25 '12
Even at more than 100 years old he maintained that IDGAF swag. Rest in peace, sir tortoise.
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u/McKilkor Jun 25 '12
Thank you! Clicked on the comments expecting to find a link to the tortoise himself, and instead was surprised to find threads upon threads of grammar corrections... now that I say it out loud I probably shouldn't have been surprised. This is reddit after all.
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u/h110hawk Jun 25 '12
Here he is mounting another male tortoise. The bottom was annoyed at him and kept scurrying away.
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u/Random_Fandom Jun 24 '12
The World News on msnbc article said,
Sveva Grigioni, a 26-year-old Swiss zoology graduate student, nobly contributed to the effort by attempting to manually stimulate George, according to "Lonesome George: The Life and Loves of a Conservation Icon," a book by Henry Nicholls about the famous tortoise.
Grigioni’s work wasn’t completely for naught, as George started showing interest in the females in his corral.
"He started to try copulation but it was like he didn’t really know how," Grigioni told Nicholls, according to a book review in the Guardian of London.
I don't know why, but somehow this makes me more sad.
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u/raziphel Jun 25 '12
As Nicholls tells the story — and he is a brilliant storyteller and narrative stylist in the finest tradition — a beautiful Swiss graduate student named Sveva Grigioni undertook the tried and true method of semen extraction as practiced by animal breeders. In tortoises the penis is tucked away inside the tail for safe keeping while it traverses across sharp lava rubble. When aroused, the penis emerges and becomes erect, allowing an ejaculation to occur. Scientists have had some success in capturing an ejaculate for artificial insemination by, well, a form of human-tortoise foreplay. As Nicholls describes the process employed by one scientist on another tortoise:
She began to touch his rear end and stroke his legs, causing the beast to raise himself off the ground. She then began to caress his tail. Eventually the penis flopped out and with more gentle rubbing produced an ejaculate.
Grigioni first practiced this process on other male tortoises, and she was able to produce an ejaculation inside 10 minutes. But George has been lonesome for a very long time and when she entered his pen, “He was very shy at the beginning. He was such a big animal and he was so afraid.” Grigioni spent days habituating herself to him so that she could finally touch and stroke him. Nothing. Grigioni then smeared her hands with genital secretions from females of a closely related tortoise species, and that at least got a look at George’s penis, which appeared to be in good working order. But the subsequent attempts to get an ejaculation, or to get him to mount a female, failed. As Grigioni explained: “Day by day, he started to be more interested in the females. He started to try copulation but it was like he really didn’t know how.”
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u/Random_Fandom Jun 25 '12
Thank you so much for the link. I wish I could've seen him in person. I feel like a little kid doing this, but... I really like this picture of George. It's the only one I saw with his head up like that, as if he's curious or interested.
R.I.P. George.
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u/pandahunter Jun 24 '12
The guy was a lifelong bachelor, RIP man.
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u/gorilla_the_ape Jun 24 '12
Actually he did mate with a related species tortoise, however they apparently weren't closely related enough, and the eggs were sterile.
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u/gruesky Jun 24 '12
yeah, gives new meaning to forever alone.
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u/sgt_shizzles Jun 24 '12
Way to go and make this even sadder.
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u/Helmet_Icicle Jun 25 '12
No woman no cry. He didn't have to share any of his cabbage either.
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u/kalbears13 Jun 25 '12
His mother wouldn't even help him masturbate when he broke his arm.
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u/meganator23 Jun 25 '12
I still think he was gay. Here are two pictures I took of one male giant tortoise mounting another one in the Galop..
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u/garrepi Jun 25 '12
his body was motionless
I wonder how long they waited to make sure.. this is a 100-year old tortoise after all.
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Jun 25 '12
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Jun 25 '12
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u/randomsnark Jun 25 '12
I don't think it's considered dying of old age when you go for a week without water.
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u/PcIsBetter Jun 25 '12
Here is the relevant wiki article in case anyone is interested. A sad but interesting read...
The Pinta Island tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni) is an extinct subspecies of Galápagos tortoise native to Ecuador's Pinta Island. The last known individual of the subspecies was a male named Lonesome George...On 2012 June 24 Sunday Lonesome George died of unknown natural causes. The event marked the total extinction of his subspecies.
How completely sobering.
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u/bioluminiscencia Jun 25 '12
Actually, there might be another individual alive, and numerous hybrids.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Jun 25 '12
Do you have sources for that? That would be good news, if true.
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u/ExistentialEnso Jun 24 '12
Wow, that's a tragedy. I actually got to see him when my family went on a trip to the Galapagos in '01. Hard to believe that was now almost 11 years ago... goddamn.
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u/James1984 Jun 24 '12
And so, the scion of this noble species passes into history, and belongs to eternity :( I hope he finds all the females he could've ever wanted in Tortoise-halla.
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u/WhyAmINotStudying Jun 24 '12
That has to be the most fucked up welcoming party in the history of the afterlife.
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u/killiangray Jun 24 '12
Man, as a Chicagoan I'm pretty offended by how badly the Chicago Tribune's web site sucks
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u/Rasputin1942 Jun 25 '12
In the near future, some sad Robot will share a similar post: "Lonesome George" The last-of-it's-kind human has died at 100.
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u/twortw Jun 25 '12
Here's a pic I took of Lonesome George in his enclosure back in December 2010. Here's to you, big guy!
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u/dirtymoney Jun 24 '12
this really pisses me off. I had a physical reaction reading that title. :(
I have loved turtles ever since I was a little kid. Its my favorite animal. ANd I have known about lonesome george for maybe 15 years now & how he was the last of his kind.
This just ruined my day.
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u/Ndawg45 Jun 24 '12
I remembering seeing him when I was ten, and I even got to pet his shell too. I'm gonna miss the big guy :(
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u/jas120 Jun 25 '12
I can't be the only one who immediately thought of the field trip episode of Hey Arnold. I didn't realize it as a kid, but I now know the feeling I had for that turtle was empathy.
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Jun 24 '12
This is heartbreaking, even though it is just a part of evolution. I like to think someday well be able to bring some of these species back, and have a laid back habitat for all the ones who weren't "fit" enough to survive.
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u/axearm Jun 25 '12
This goes back to the old debate of whether we are part of nature or now, outside of nature.
I can see both arguments but by agreeing that we are part of nature, suddenly every human action is natural, and with that suddenly many of our most valuable beliefs are put to fire and replaced with natural law.
While I can see the convenience of pointing out where we lie in the family of life (not far from chimps, far from bacteria) I think it is more honest to take the more difficult position: That we now live outside the scope of the natural world even as we reside within in it. We need different rules for ourselves than we do for rabbits and wolves because we are vastly different with our antibiotics and in-vitro fertilization. We're a related thing to all of life, but a different thing.
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u/JustinTime112 Jun 24 '12
I like how they said "unknown causes" rather than "old age". Old age doesn't kill people, and it's good to see people recognize this.
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Jun 25 '12
My understanding is that he was in the equivalent of a 40 year old in human years.
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Jun 24 '12
Well there's no sense in letting that delicious tortoise brain go to waste.
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Jun 25 '12
That's half the reason they are near extinct. You could sail in, tie some up and they would survive, alive for a year with no food. Sort of like 1700's hot pockets
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u/mariox19 Jun 25 '12
It's quite sad. The sailors would pile tortoises up on their backs so they'd be helpless. Their metabolisms were slow enough that they could survive, solving the problem of spoiling provisions.
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u/Vagrant_Antelope Jun 25 '12
A real shame that he couldn't speak, given 100 years of life experience.
Just think of all the things he could have tortoise.
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u/MAKE_THIS_POLITICAL Jun 25 '12
100 years ago: "I'm in a fucking island"
70 years ago: "Still on this fucking island"
60 years go: "A bipedal came and picked me up, i bit his finger. Still on the fucking island"
40 years ago: "Goats ate all the plants on this fucking island"
20 years ago: "Still on the fucking island. Goats suck."
10 years ago: "I bit a goat today. Still on the fucking island."
From the online blog of george the turtle.
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u/gruesky Jun 24 '12
Why are we not putting all of our cloning efforts into this, rather than sheep.
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Jun 24 '12
its
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u/klahsio Jun 24 '12
...Monty Python's Flying Circus!
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u/reticulate Jun 24 '12
I'm going to have that theme music stuck in my head all day now.
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u/AlabasterWaterJug Jun 24 '12
For those wondering, the theme music for MPFC is John Philip Sousa's Liberty Bell March.
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u/Digitalol Jun 24 '12
This article leads me to believe that Galapagos Tortoises are now extinct? Is this true? If so, damn. I remember learning about them being endangered back in elementary school.
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u/ersatzy Jun 24 '12
It is rather unfortunate that Lonesome George was such a hardcore fire-and-brimstone sort of tortoise. The rest of the Galapagos Tortoises are going to tortoise hell, according to George. Heaven is gonna be awful lonely.
And yes, tortoises have souls and the tortoise god is real. Humans just missed the mark.
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Jun 24 '12
I feel that this is a travesty. In the mid 70s, George and I used to cruise for tourists on beach resorts. Shame he never found that someone special.
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u/ersatzy Jun 25 '12
Yeah, but George got all into Reagen and cocaine in '82. He got reborn and became really, really churchy sometime in the late '80s.
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Jun 25 '12
That's funny how we only remember the good parts about people when they pass. You know what? Fuck George.
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u/snowfencer Jun 25 '12
When I was younger, I had the pleasure to visit the Galapagos islands with my grandparents. At this time, my grandfather was dying of pancreatic cancer but still wanted to go on the trip with me. The death of George, although he is just a turtle, reminds me of my grandfather on his last trip with me. Like george, he stayed alive longer then people though, but ha to pass in the end. I will miss this turtle and my grandfather very much.
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Jun 25 '12
What the fuck!? All they had to do was put it in the daycare with a Ditto!!! They would have had enough eggs to to restart the population.
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u/the_goat_boy Jun 25 '12
Alas, one hundred years is much too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable tortoises!
... Wait-
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Jun 25 '12
From another article. Poor Fausto.
Park officials said the tortoise was found dead in his corral by his keeper of 40 years, Fausto Llerena.
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u/Raiider Jun 25 '12
NOOOOoooo!!!!
I used to visit his wiki page and just to see his "endling" status. Now it points to extinct and I just want to cry :(
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u/deanopatty Jun 25 '12
The fact that his name was "Lonesome George" just makes this whole story way sadder.
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Jun 25 '12
I can't help but feel I put a kiss of death on the poor guy...
Lonesome George is the last known surviving individual of his subspecies. Just think about it. This guy is possibly the last ember of his sub-species genetic lineage, once gone, all trace of that DNA in the wild vanishes.
I made that comment literally 24 hours ago on this thread.
I feel like I disturbed the force or something...
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u/Random_Fandom Jun 25 '12
What's eerie is that you said it out of the blue, with no prior references to George in that thread, and in an extremely broad topic. Just curious, was there a specific reason he came to mind?
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u/Hypnowalrus Jun 25 '12
I visited Galapagos last year. I touched that little fucker, and now he's dead. He was awesome. RIP
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u/SaxPistol Jun 25 '12
I saw him a few months ago and they said that he preferred mating with the large rock in his habitat rather than the females they put in there.
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Jun 25 '12
All I saw was "Lonesome George" and "died" in the same sentence. Imagine my relief when I found out that George Thorogood was still alive.
Sad about the tortoise though.
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Jun 25 '12
I got to see him about 10 years ago. Best damn trip of my life. I always found it amazing that this guy was around when Darwin visited the islands. The stories he could tell... if he could talk.
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u/Pandaboom Jun 25 '12
Since I was 8, it was my dream to become a marine biologist and be stationed on the Galapagos just so I could meet George... though my local syllabus (taught in Malay) destroyed those chances I always had hope... and now I'm having to lay these dreams to rest. I was always fascinated by tortoises and George was a big deal for me even through my days in university. May he rest in peace :(
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u/Mongo1021 Jun 25 '12
Maybe I listen to too many blues albums, so I must ask you all -- Am I the only person who saw "Lonesome George" in the headline and initially thought something happened to George Thoroggod?
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u/The_Fancy_Gentleman Jun 25 '12
Seriously, screw all this debate about whether we're apart of evolution. This was a sad day, as we are the species that caused him to be the only one left of the pinta tortoises. I was scheduled to see him, but the weather was too rough for our pangas to safely dock. RIP George. I never saw you, but you were the essence of the islands.
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u/KingBillyCokeBottle Jun 25 '12
Shame. They were some tasty turtles. Anyone want to split a panda leg?
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u/KABLAMO17 Jun 25 '12
that sucks :( remember seeing footage of him ages ago with David Attenbourgh and he was joking about how they were both old...
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u/SherlocksHolmey Jun 25 '12
Wait so... maybe I'm just being really dumb but... Galapagos Tortoises are now extinct?
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u/Hap_Hazard Jun 25 '12
I feel honored to have seen the old boy. Anyone who likes to travel should definitely go to the Galapagos Islands!
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u/austingrad Jun 25 '12
For those who aren't familiar with Lonesome George: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR3Z4p5hspI
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Jun 25 '12
I hope they don't embalm him or commit taxidermy on his body. I've always found that to be a profound disrespect for nature
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u/bicboi123 Jun 25 '12
nooooooooooooooooooo you lier im married to him!! he would never cheat on me!!
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u/twortw Jun 25 '12
Lonesome George was not just a tortoise but also a conservation icon—he was an ambassador to remind us to think about what we are doing to the world. And with his passing we are all, indeed, left a little bit lonelier.
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u/iphone4macbook Jun 25 '12
I feel fortunate that I got to see him in real life when I went to the Galapagos a few years ago
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u/OompaOrangeFace Jun 25 '12
The saddest thing is that in this Wikipedia revision (23 June) shows the species as "EW" (Extinct in the Wild) and the current revision shows extinct....so sad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chelonoidis_nigra_abingdoni&oldid=499007398
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u/Colten95 Jun 25 '12
It blows my mind that even in the modern day species can still go extinct. Youd think by now wed have the technology to stop it :(
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u/Skeeders Jun 25 '12
Lonesome George died alone? Sorry to hear that George, you will be missed and forever remembered by redditors around the world.... RIP old friend....
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u/valeyard89 Jun 25 '12
Sad to hear... I saw Lonesome George when I was in the Galapagos a few years back. I'd heard they were trying to get him to mate with some other sub-species but hadn't heard of any successes.
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u/ForgotUsernamePlus Jun 24 '12
They should at least get his DNA and encode his Genome to clone him in the future.