100-Year-Old Tortoise With A Legendary Sex Drive Became The Father Of 800 Saving His Species

Tortoises are reptile species distinguished from other turtles by being land-dwelling, while many other turtle species are at least partly aquatic.

A 100-year-old stud tortoise with a legendary sex drive has helped rescue his entire species. He will very soon go back into the wild now that he has successfully fathered 800 offspring.

Diego, a unique tortoise that was born in the wild and still lives in the Galapagos Islands, was credited repopulation his species after a multi-decade long stint in a successful captive breeding program.

This 100-year-old tortoise was really good at one thing... and @SaveGalapagos says it saved his species.

After fathering 800 offspring, Diego is retiring @parquegalapagos pic.twitter.com/He2o0sTgFk

— QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) January 14, 2020

Galápagos tortoises are known to live more than 150 years, but an Aldabra giant tortoise named Adwaita might have been the longest living an estimated 255 years. In general, most tortoise species can live 80–150 years.

Roughly half a century ago, only two males and 12 females of his species were alive on the island, and those giant tortoises were far too spread out to reproduce successfully.

And so Diego was shipped out from the San Diego Zoo in the 1960s to take part in the program on Santa Cruz Island, which lies off California's Central Coast near Santa Barbara, where park rangers believe him to be the patriarch of at least 40 percent of a population of over 2,000 tortoises.

Diego was joined in his efforts by 14 other adults who were eager and willing to repopulate the species.

The Galapagos Islands is an archipelago lying hundreds of miles off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean and is a major tourist destination for wildlife viewing.

The island chain is famous for inspiring British naturalist Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and is considered to be a "living laboratory" of inestimable worth to biologists.

The islands are home to numerous unique species of plants and animals. The archipelago has been named a United Nations World Heritage site.