A previously unknown extinct tortoise was revealed in an investigation on these giants' evolutionary history.
At least a millennium ago, a giant tortoise crept through Madagascar, grazing on plants by the boatload — a bountiful diet that made it the ecosystem equivalent of mammoths and other big herbivores. And like the mammoth, this previously unknown giant tortoise is extinct, a new study finds.
Most species native to that region are now extinct due to human activities, and paleontologists are still struggling to piece together the story of these bygone tortoises. But analyzing these giants' ancient DNA is providing a path forward, which, in turn, sheds light on prehistoric island life. The tricky task of reconstructing their history would fall to modern paleontologists."Tortoise remains are notoriously fragmented, and it's a real challenge to figure out what a tortoise looked like just from part of a shell," Samonds said. Scientists also struggled to make sense of a fossil record muddied by the tortoise trade.
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