Hey, I'm Flor Lichtenen, and you're listening to Science Friday.

It seems like the world is moving ever faster, with news alerts that change from one hour to the next.

So we decided it might be a good idea to focus on some slow moving stories.

Coming out of his shell is SciFri chief turtle and tortoise

correspondent. Charles Berkwest, welcome. Hey, Flora. You have been on the glacial turtle-tortle

beat at Cy-Fri for over a decade, I understand. Yeah, I mean, this started in 2012 when

Lonesome George, the famous Galapagos

tortoise, died. He had been kind of a conservation icon as the last of a line. So I ended up

producing this memorial obituary segment, which involved getting a live sat phone conversation

between Ira and the late tortoise conservationist Linda Cayo from the

Galapagos. Amazing. I should note a follow up on that. Like in 2020, some genetics analysis led

researchers to believe that George's line may not be completely lost. So that's good news.

Oh, I love that. Good news already. Can we, before we get going, please tell me the

difference between a turtle and a tortoise? Okay, so all tortoises are turtles, but not all

turtles are tortoises. Tortoises are specifically a subset of turtles that are primarily land

dwelling, whereas turtles can include both aquatic and not aquatic species.

Okay, so back to the Galapagos. This year, there are some exciting developments in tortoise

conservation. Yeah, so not Lonesome George, but another subspecies of Galapagos tortoise. This one's

from Floriana Island. So there's 13 major islandscies of Galapagos tortoise. This one's from Floriana Island.

So there's 13 major islands in the Galapagos and about the same number of distinct

tortoise subspecies across those islands. Tortoises on Floriana had been pretty much wiped out,

but earlier this year, conservationists released 158 young tortoises onto the island.

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