Diego is a tortoise of the endangered Chelonoidis hoodensis subspecies (Picture: AFP/ Rodrigo Buendia/ Getty)

This tortoise has been extremely busy over the last 50 years…

And by busy, we mean he has fathered more than 800 offspring – and therefore saved his entire species from extinction. Yes, really.

Diego the giant tortoise, who weighs around 13 stone, was taken from San Diego Zoo to the Galapagos Islands five decades ago in the hope that he would breed.

And, by all means, he did exactly that.


He lives in a breeding centre at the Galapagos National Park on Santa Cruz Island (Picture: AFP/ Rodrigo Buendia/ Getty)

Diego stops for some lunch after a morning of hard work (Picture: AFP/ Rodrigo Buendia/ Getty)

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Before his arrival there were just two male and 12 female members of the Chelonoidis hoodensis species alive on Espanola, and they were too spread out to reproduce.

He, however, has done more than any other tortoise to turn that around and now lives at a tortoise breeding centre on Santa Cruz Island, where he shares an enclosure with six females.



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Washington Tapia, a tortoise preservation specialist at Galapagos National Park, said: ‘He’s a very sexually active male reproducer. He’s contributed enormously to repopulating the island.

‘We did a genetic study and we discovered that he was the father of nearly 40% of the offspring released into the wild on Espanola.’

Diego weighs 13 stone (Picture: AFP/ Rodrigo Buendia/ Getty)

In total, around 2,000 tortoises have now been released onto the small island and the species is no longer facing extinction.

Impressive work, Diego.