Dozens of giant tortoise believed to be from an extinct species 150 years ago was rediscovered in a remote location Galapagos Islands region. The findings were published in the journal Current Biology.

In the journal it shows there are at least 38 turtles tail of Chelonoidis elephantopus class living on the slopes of the volcano about 200 miles north of the island of Isabela. The existence of these turtles away from endemic areas before declared extinct due whales hunted by searchers on the island of Floreana.

"It's not just for academic purposes," said senior researcher in ecology and evolutionary biology from Yale University, Gisella Caccone, which was launched in one of the science website on Tuesday (10 / 1).

A Yale research team visited Mount Wolf at the northern tip of Isabela Island in 2008. They took blood samples from 1,600 tortoises. They then compared the samples with a database of genetic and species of turtles that were previously believed to have been extinct.

The results of that analysis to detect genetic markers elephantopus C. in 84 Volcano Wolf tortoises. That is, the type of parent they are members of the class of extinct species. In 30 breeding has occurred in the last 15 years.

With an estimated age of a turtle can exceed 100 years, there is the possibility of these types of turtles that live there and breed in the wild. "This is the first report of the rediscovery of species by means of genetic traces in the genome of offspring that have been crossed," says Yale University researcher, Ryan Garrick.