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Lonesome George, the last tortoise of his kind, died Sunday in his enclosure in the Galápagos, off Ecuador's coast. Biologists estimated that George was about 100 years old--relatively young for a giant tortoise.
According to the Associated Press an autopsy of George is underway, although his keepers think he may have suffered a heart attack.
George was the last of the Pinta Island giant tortoise subspecies Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni; the subspecies is thought to date back ten million years. Repeated attempts to mate George with closely-related females failed, and George became a sad symbol of biodiversity loss.
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