Baby Tortoises Show Up In The Galapagos For The First Time In Over A Century.

Baby tortoises have been spotted for the first time in over 100 years in the Galapagos Islands.

There hadn't been one single baby tortoise sighting in more than a century on the Galapagos Island of Pinzon, until a small group of the tiny, shelled youngsters were spotted this year.

The eradication of rats on this island, done by the park service and others, has created the opportunity for the tortoises to breed for the first time in ages.

While the researchers were conducting a survey to find out how things were going for the tortoises, they found the 10 new hatchlings.

"Given projection probabilities, I'm sure there were a hundred times more hatchlings out there, he explained. Gibbs and his team spotted 300 tortoises in all on the trip, which suggests there are likely more than 500 currently living on the island. 

In the 1960s, just 100 of the tortoises lived here.