Hundreds of miles off the coast of Ecuador, in the very place that inspired Charles Darwin’s seminal theory of evolution, a wild-growing species appears to have hit rewind.

A small tomato found in the Galápagos, known scientifically as Solanum pennellii, first caught the attention of researchers in 2024 during a study of alkaloids, natural compounds produced by plants that can act as a built-in pesticide. As the scientists analyzed tomatoes found across the area, they noticed something peculiar: Solanum pennellii from the younger, western islands of the archipelago were producing compounds that hadn’t been seen in tomato plants for millions of years.

The researchers then compared the unusual plants with Solanum pennellii samples on the older islands. They found that the tomatoes on the eastern islands had a modern defense system, implying that the younger, western plants were not left behind on the species’ evolutionary journey, but instead displayed a possible case of “reverse evolution.”

Charles Darwin proposed the fundamental scientific theory of evolution. Universal History Archive/Getty Images

“It’s not very common to see reverse evolution,” said Adam Jozwiak, a molecular biochemist at the University of California, Riverside, who was part of the team that made the discovery. The scientists reported their findings in June in the journal Nature Communications.

“We think that maybe environmental conditions put the pressure on these tomatoes to revert back to origina