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A female tortoise, rediscovered more than a century after her species was presumed extinct, could still give birth using sperm she kept inside her since the last time she mated - as long as a HUNDRED years ago.

The giant Fernandina Tortoise, which had not been seen since 1906, was found last month on the remote volcanic island of Fernandina in the Galapagos.

But with the only other specimen ever found a dead male collected at the turn of the century, news of the historic discovery was muted by the fact that, unless another male is found soon, the species would die out with her.

But Forrest Galante, the biologist and Animal Planet presenter who led the expedition, today said the female could still save her species - because of her amazing ability to keep fertile sperm until she needs it.

And he said that as the tortoise, now named Fern and aged around 110, gains weight and becomes healthier now she’s in captivity, she could surprise conservationists by laying eggs using decades-old sperm without the need to find a male suitor.

(Image: ECUADOR ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Speaking to Mirror Online, he said: “It's incredible, but female tortoises are able to withhold viable sperm within them for decades, then produce offspring without having to mate a second time.

“Because she’s been under such extreme environmental stress, she’s thin, she’s relatively dehydrated, she wouldn’t have laid eggs because that’s too much of a biological resource for her to expend, and her body would have retain the sperm inside of her.

“But now she’s in captivity, eating, drinking, and gaining weight, she could easily produce viable offspring without having to mate a second time.

“Nobody knows anything about the Fernandina tortoise because it’s the first one ever found, but given the harshness of the environment and the uniqueness of the animal, it’s certainly possible that she is able to hold viable sperm for 100 years.

“We won’t know until she begins to lay eggs.”

The animal was captured during an expedition funding by TV channel Animal Planet for the series Extinct or Alive, which Forrest presents.

(Image: Mark Romanov and John Harrington)

He said the trip to the remote island of Fernandina, about 620 miles off Ecuador’s mainland and featuring the La Cumbre volcano, one of the most active in the world, came after years of meticulous planning.

Forrest said: “A couple of things led me to believe there was a chance the Fernandina tortoise wasn’t extinct.

"In 1962 a man named Ross Tysler found tortoise droppings on a different part of the island.

“And locals said they might have seen a tortoise up on a cliff from the shore. So there were a couple of very small clues.

"But to me the thing that told me the tortoise could be there was the fact that nobody goes to the island, it’s so remote and such a harsh environment and permission to step foot on the island is next to impossible to obtain.”

(Image: Getty Images) (Image: ECUADOR ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Forrest and his team, along with Galapagos National Park Ranger Jeffery Malaga and the director of the Galapagos Conservancy, Washington Tapia, began the expedition with a 15-hour boat ride from Santa Cruz, the capital of the Galapagos islands.

He said: “Once we got there we had to make land, through swells in a small dinghy, and literally hop off of the boat onto the shore, with all of our camping gear.

“We then hiked for a day to build camp. There are no trees in the area, it was about 120 degrees, with heat radiating up from the ground because it’s a volcano, and the equatorial sun beating down on you. The conditions were extremely harsh.”

The team began by hiking up to the top of the volcano in order to survey the island and look for possible places where tortoises might be living.

Forrest said: “I identified some green spaces, which were incredibly isolated because of the lava flows.

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"I knew getting to each green space would be very slow and very treacherous.

“We hiked back down the volcano to camp, slept the night, and on day two started before dawn, hiking for about six hours over the lava fields to the first green patch.

“Absolutely amazingly, within just a couple of hours of getting to the green space, we found tortoise scat, then an active bedding site.

“By now I’d become so hyper-focused on my mission that for the first time in days I forgot the fact I had massive sunburn and partial heatstroke, and that I was soaking in sweat and everything else.

"About 40 minutes later, we we spotted her hiding under a bush."

(Image: Mark Romanov and John Harrington)

Describing the moment he found the tortoise, Forrest said: “It was an overwhelming sense of excitement and accomplishment, bigger than words can describe really.

“This incredible feeling of finding an animal that the world had forgotten about came over me and the rest of the team.”

He said the tortoise could have been completely alone, surviving on the patch of habitant encircled by lava flows, for up to 70 years.

Foorest added: “She has been on her own for a very long time, she is over 100 years old, probably around 110 judging by her features.

(Image: ECUADOR ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

“Whether there has been another animal in that patch in the last century or not I really can’t say.

"It’s certainly possible that the patch was five or six times the size it is today, and that a recent lava flow wiped out all the animals, and she just got lucky.

“It’s also possible that another tortoise could have been there with her for thirty or forty years and then died. Or she could have been completely on her own for a human lifetime - there’s no way to judge that.

Forrest is now turning his attention to finding a male suitor for Fern.

(Image: ECUADOR ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

He said: “We spent two more days looking for a male but didn’t find another individual.

“There are several other patches of green space on the island.

"Because it’s a volcano there are these massive lava flows which a tortoise cannot cross, and which separate these small pockets of habitat.

"So my guess is there could be other tortoises in these places.

“Now the world’s attention has turned to Fern funding is being collected for a future expedition to try to locate a male.

(Image: ECUADOR ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

“That would be the best way to keep the species alive. But if we can’t find one, there’s still hope.

"We could mate her with another male from another nearby island, so you would have a tortoise which is very genetically close to the Fernandina tortoise and aesthetically identical.

“Or she could surprise us by using sperm she’s kept inside her for decades and just start laying eggs. That would be just incredible.”