Galapagos bachelor tortoise struggles to be a dad

By Alonso Soto

QUITO (Reuters) - After stunning conservationists by mating for the first time in decades, a giant tortoise from the Galapagos islands called Lonesome George, who is the last of his kind, still may not become a dad.

George, a 90-year-old conservation marvel and one of the world's rarest creatures, mated this year with two females, but 80 percent of the eggs they laid appear infertile.

The females belong to a different subspecies of giant tortoise.

A Pinta Island tortoise, George had showed little interest in sex during 36 years in captivity. His new-found libido has raised hopes he could save his subspecies from extinction

Ecuadorean scientists are studying the eggs and have not ruled out that George could be sterile.

"We are puzzled. We will leave the eggs in the incubators and try to find answers," said Washington Tapia, a park official in change of George's reproduction programme. "It's too early to say if George is infertile, only genetic research could tell us that."

However, hopes is not lost. Scientists said 20 percent of the remaining eggs could still produce offspring.

George's keepers placed his eggs in incubators decorated with religious images in hopes of a miracle.