Diego the giant tortoise is heading into retirement after helping to bring his species back from the brink of extinction. Zoologists are calling him a master of seduction and he is being hailed as a saviour by conservationists at the San Diego Zoo, who about 50 years ago loaned him to a team aiming to boost the tortoise population of the island of Espanola, in the Galapagos Islands.

At that tome the island had just two other males and a dozen females.
Diego is the patriarch of roughly 800 offspring.