UPPER WEST SIDE — Lonesome George, who was the last member of a now extinct species of Galapagos Islands tortoises, is making a pit stop at the American Museum of Natural History this fall.
The 100-year-old tortoise died in June 2012, but a team of more than 60 scientists spent two years preserving his body so his role as an icon of the conservation movement could continue.
George will be on view at the museum until Jan. 4, at which point he will return permanently to Ecuador.
After centuries of being hunted for meat and tortoise oil, which is a fuel source, the species that once roamed the Pinta Island in the Galapagos by the thousands was thought to be extinct by the early 1900s.
In 1971, Lonesome George was spotted by a Hungarian scientist. He'd been laying low on the island for decades, explained Christopher Raxworthy, a curator at the museum who helped preserve the tortoise.
"He became the rarest species on Earth," said the museum's senior vice president, Mike Novacek.
"He was likely the most famous and most photographed turtle."
The discovery ignited hope that if George could be bred with a closely related tortoise, his own species could be revived from the brink of extinction, Novacek said.
But the tortoise who became an international celebrity was, paradoxically, a loner.
"He was reluctant to be accompanied by other tortoises... He would stay away from everybody," even his daily handlers, explained Arturo Izurieta, director of the Galapagos National Park and Marine Reserve, who helped oversee Lonesome George's care.
Despite repeated efforts, Lonesome George never produced any offspring, Izurieta said.
The 165-pound, 5-foot-long tortoise is now set up for public view in the museum's Astor Turret on the fourth floor.
His position there, surrounded by dinosaur fossils — whose extinction came about through natural disaster rather than human causes — is a reminder of how important it is to fight to keep animals like Lonesome George alive, Izurieta added.
"[Lonesome George] is gone because of human actions," he said.
Situated within a glass case, he is shown standing up, with his neck reaching forward and what some scientists describe as a slight smirk on his face.
The taxidermy team went to great lengths to preserve him as he looked right before he died, with the remains of his last meal of cactus plant dribbling down his neck and dust on the back of his shell from sleeping, Raxworthy said.
"We managed to capture his real essence," he said. "He's quite striking."
