Saving Species: The Co-Evolution of Tortoise Taxonomy and Conservation in the Galápagos Islands

This article tells the stories behind the names of two species of Galápagos giant tortoise, Chelonoidis porteri and Chelonoidis donfaustoi, both of which inhabit Santa Cruz Island and which, until 2015, were considered one species, C. porteri. Taking a multispecies approach, it demonstrates how changing species designations reflect coevolving histories of science and conservation. Walter Rothschild assigned the name Testudo porteri in 1903 at a time when naturalists increasingly were concerned about the scarcity of animals they came to see as both endemic and endangered. Rothschild’s epithet honored US naval captain David Porter, the first person to write about differences among the Galápagos tortoises in the 1810s, which he noticed because his crews gathered tons of the animals as food stores for Pacific voyages. For Rothschild, saving species meant preserving them in his museum for the benefit of science before they were eaten. A century later, some of the C. porteri animals were renamed C. donfaustoi based on genetic studies of evolution and very different approaches to saving endangered species. This case study shows how nature, science, and conservation have coproduced species differently at different historical moments. By examining the changing practices through which species are enacted, this article outlines a framework by which environmental historians might productively engage with histories of science and science and technology studies to query just what species are, how they change, and with what consequences.