15 guanacos were taken to a remote Falklands island in the 1930s; their descendants kept their genetic diversity through two severe population crashes
In the late 1930s, a small group of guanacos, native South American camelids, was shipped from southern Patagonia to Staats Island, a remote, treeless Falklands island. Only fifteen animals founded the entire herd. Roughly twenty-five years later, a cull reduced it from about 300 animals to between 10 and 20. Such a herd would be … Read more