Asked by Mary
Lonesome george’s genom
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Answered by
GPT-5 mini
Do you mean (a) a quick summary of what’s known about Lonesome George’s DNA/genetics, (b) whether his whole genome was ever sequenced and where the data are, or (c) the genetic results that motivated efforts to “recover” Pinta Island tortoise ancestry (hybrids found on Isabela)? Tell me which and I’ll give a focused answer or pull up key papers and data accessions.
Brief summary meanwhile
- Lonesome George (last known Pinta Island tortoise, Chelonoidis [formerly Geochelone] abingdonii) was sampled for genetic studies before he died in 2012.
- Early work used mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites to place him within Galápagos tortoise diversity and to search for possible relatives.
- Later, researchers used genome-wide markers (SNPs / sequencing) across many Galápagos tortoises and found individuals on Volcano Wolf (Isabela Island) with partial Pinta ancestry — evidence that Pinta genotypes persist in hybrids, which led to conservation plans to try to recover Pinta-lineage genes.
- There are now genomic resources for Galápagos giant tortoises (population-level SNP datasets and at least one reference genome from a Galápagos giant tortoise species). Whether a high-quality, individual whole-genome assembly was produced specifically from Lonesome George’s tissue depends on the particular project — many population studies sequenced many individuals rather than creating separate high-quality assemblies for each.
If you want, I can:
- List the main papers and authors (and give publication years),
- Find SRA / GenBank accession numbers for sequence data,
- Summarize the genetics behind the Volcano Wolf hybrid discoveries and the conservation program to recover Pinta ancestry.
Brief summary meanwhile
- Lonesome George (last known Pinta Island tortoise, Chelonoidis [formerly Geochelone] abingdonii) was sampled for genetic studies before he died in 2012.
- Early work used mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites to place him within Galápagos tortoise diversity and to search for possible relatives.
- Later, researchers used genome-wide markers (SNPs / sequencing) across many Galápagos tortoises and found individuals on Volcano Wolf (Isabela Island) with partial Pinta ancestry — evidence that Pinta genotypes persist in hybrids, which led to conservation plans to try to recover Pinta-lineage genes.
- There are now genomic resources for Galápagos giant tortoises (population-level SNP datasets and at least one reference genome from a Galápagos giant tortoise species). Whether a high-quality, individual whole-genome assembly was produced specifically from Lonesome George’s tissue depends on the particular project — many population studies sequenced many individuals rather than creating separate high-quality assemblies for each.
If you want, I can:
- List the main papers and authors (and give publication years),
- Find SRA / GenBank accession numbers for sequence data,
- Summarize the genetics behind the Volcano Wolf hybrid discoveries and the conservation program to recover Pinta ancestry.
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