Nearly Destroyed DNA Reveals Two Extinct Giant Tortoise Lineages

Nearly Destroyed DNA Reveals Two Extinct Giant Tortoise Lineages

Using a new computational toolkit, Yale researchers recovered evolutionary clues from highly degraded DNA and identified two extinct lineages of giant tortoises. Some Galapagos giant tortoise specimens preserved in museums contained so little usable DNA that less than 1% of their genomes could be read. Yet Yale researchers were still able to recover enough genetic [...]