Tortoises Drift In and Restock an Empty Atoll

Holocene

Once emergent again, Aldabra was restocked by giant tortoises drifting in from Madagascar and by rails, ibises and drongos flying the gap. The Aldabrachelys lineage had split from the extinct Madagascan A. abrupta some 4.5 million years earlier — but nothing living on the atoll today is older than this recolonisation.