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| RIP George. Go get the party started in tortoise heaven! |
On the 24th June 2012, at 8 am local time, Lonesome George, the last of the Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni species of tortoise (also known as the Pinta Island tortoise, Pinta giant tortoise, Abingdon Island tortoise, or Abingdon Island giant tortoise), slipped silently away from the world of the living and off to the world of tomatoes.
It is believed that Lonesome George, a.k.a. El Solitario Jorge in his native tongue, was the last of his species. Conservationists have been searching for years to find another tortoise of this species, but failed to do so.
But all reproduction attempts failed. Was he gay?
Whilst many efforts were made by his keepers to help conserve his species, none of them turned out to be successful. Once in July 2008, then one year later July 2009, then again in January 2011, his keepers made extensive efforts to get him to mate with female tortoises. George did apparently mate with some other tortoises, but in none of the cases did the eggs produce offspring. Could the mating just have been a myth?
It would seem an awfully epic fail from a fate point of view. Just think how frustrating it is to imagine that Lonesome George, the last known tortoise of his kind in the world, who they've been trying to get to successfully mate for years, might have been gay? It kind of makes me wonder if they ever tried to find out. Does gaydar work on 100 year-old tortoises? Didn't they ever try throwing a copy of the Playgirl magazine in there with him? (Although I'm not sure if tortoise equivalents of the Playgirl magazine exist... Mind you, there are some twisted minds out there...).
John Vidal, the environment editor of the Guardian, shares my theory. He said, in his tribute to George, that "no one knew if he was gay, impotent, bored or just very shy". Homosexuality in animals has been demonstrated in the past and is an argument both for and against homosexuality in humans. On the one hand, it shows that it is natural because it happens in other species apart from Homo sapiens, but on the other hand it is seen by some to be the perfect proof that it's "below human standards". Personally, I think the people who think the latter need to think about other things we do that animals do too, like eating, drinking and sleeping. But we eat food mixed into recipes, and drink mixed substances, and most of us sleep in beds... Isn't that unnatural?
Anyway, I think I'll leave the "homosexuality in animals" discussion to Michael, our team biologist so it seems! And so, I'll leave you lovely tortoise-loving people to watch a nice video of Georgy in his little pad... But who knows? Maybe he was the Elton John of gay tortoises around the world? Perhaps gay tortoises are mourning his death as we speak? Some may be wondering why he didn't just come out, but then I guess when you have that much pressure on you to reproduce in the interests of the continuation of your species, you don't get to say "no".
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