In 1835, Darwin and his shipmates collected specimens of the Floreana mockingbird in the Galapagos Islands. Now those same specimens may help conservationists re-establish the species to the island that gives them their name.

Although they died out on the isle of Floreana some 50 years after the famous naturalist’s visit, two populations of Mimus trifasciatus still exist on nearby rocks.

In the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters, Paquita Hoeck and colleagues report that genetic analysis shows that one of these populations is highly inbred but comparison with the specimens collected by Darwin reveals that both have unique alleles found in the original Floreana population. For this reason birds from both populations should be used in the forthcoming attempt to reintroduce the animals to the main island, they say.

“Though Darwin knew nothing of DNA, the specimens he and [Beagle captain Robert] FitzRoy collected have, after 170 years of safe-keeping in collections, yielded genetic clues to suggest a path for conservation of this critically endangered and historically important species,” says paper author Karen James, a researcher at the Natural History Museum where the specimens are kept (press release).

Two others authors on the paper may be familiar to Nature News readers: Peter and Rosemary Grant.

See also: Nature’s Darwin 200 special.

Image: Natural History Museum