An interesting note about the tortoise concerns the Galapagos finch. Though the mud-caked tortoises usually deter ticks and mosquitoes, researchers have observed finches landing on the backs of a tortoise, and removing ticks from the tortoise's body.
The Galapogos Tortoise is near extinction, with only a few surviving subspecies. Pirates, sealers, whalers, and merchant sailors slaughtered them until few remained. A few small wild populations still exist on the islands and are protected under law. Several more are found in zoos. On the islands, survival is very difficult because of the foreign species that have been introduced by the sailing ships. Cats and rats ravage the tortoises' nests and feed on the young. Wild goats and pigs also pose a problem by stripping many areas of covering vegetation, so that nests are more easily accessible.
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: endangered
They were slaughtered by merchants for their meat and sold.
The Giant Tortoise's diet includes grasses, forbs, and leaves on bushes. They have been known to eat several peculiar foods, such as stinging nettles and crab-apple like fruits of the manzanillo tree, which burn human skin. Individuals that live primarily in warm, but completely dry, lava soils in the lowlands of the Galapagos, often wander over long paths to the volcanic highlands, where they have access to drinking water and an abundance of plants. They may wallow there for hours, drinking and swimming lazily. At night, however, they return down the same path to the lowlands.
The bulk of the animals live in the center of the Galapagos archipelego; of the living subspecies, six can be found on Albermale, and six on each of the islands of James, Indefatigable, Duncan, Hood, Chatham, and Abingdon.
Biogeographic Regions: oceanic islands (Native )
The animal's habitat is two-fold. It spends the cooler hours of its day in the warm, but completely dry, lava soils in the lowlands of the islands, where the terrain is usually arid and grassy. However, during the warm hours of the day, the tortoise travels along its beaten path to the volcanic highlands to swim and feed on the lush plantlife that grows there.
Terrestrial Biomes: savanna or grassland ; forest ; scrub forest
Average lifespan
Status: captivity: 177 years.
The Giant Tortoise can be up to 1.1m long and can reach an age of over 100 years. The animal's carapace resembles a black, horny shield, although the lichens that sometimes live on the shell can give it a mottled appearance. In some subspecies, the front part of the carapace is bent upward and shaped like a saddle, enabling the animal to raise its head on long necks to graze on higher parts of plants. The tortoise's elephantine feet have short toes and lack all traces of webbing. Males are typically larger than females.
Range mass: 150 to 200 kg.
Other Physical Features: ectothermic ; bilateral symmetry
The Giant Tortoise practices internal fertilization. Between the months of January and August, the male begins sniffing the air for a female's scent. After he has found a female, he chases her down and begins courtship with intimidation. He rams her with the front of his shell and nips at her exposed legs until she draws them in, immobilizing her. He then mates with her. Nesting occurs at different times, but usually between June and December. The female travels to dry sunny lowlands where the eggs receive adequate warmth for incubation. She lays an average of 10 eggs in a nest, which she buries under the surface with her strong back legs. Incubation time for different clutches ranges from three to eight months, the longer periods most likely having a relation to cooler weather. When the eggs hatch, the baby tortoises are forced to fend for themselves. Most die in the first ten years of life.
Key Reproductive Features: gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), also known as the Charles Island giant tortoise, is an extinct subspecies of the Galápagos tortoise endemic to the Galápagos archipelago in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean. The specific epithet niger (‘black’) probably refers to the colouration of the holotype specimen.[2] The species name has often been misspelled as nigra, an error introduced in the 1980s when Chelonoidis was elevated to genus and mistakenly treated as feminine, an error recognized and fixed in 2017.[3]
This tortoise is a member of Chelonoidis niger, comprising all Galápagos tortoise subspecies, of which it is the nominate form.[4]
Male tortoises grew to about 138 cm and females to 88 cm in length, with strongly saddlebacked carapaces.[2]
The tortoises used to descend to the lower slopes of their volcanic island to graze on new vegetation after wet season rains. They fed on grass, bitterbush and cacti, obtaining water from springs and from cracks in the lava rocks.[2]
The tortoise's natural range was limited to 173 km2 Floreana Island (formerly Charles Island) where it inhabited deciduous and evergreen forests.[2]
The tortoise population of Floreana is estimated to have originally comprised some 8,000 individuals. Extinction occurred during the 1840s or 1850s following overexploitation for food by sailors and settlers, as well as predation and habitat degradation from introduced species, including goats, pigs, dogs, cats, donkeys, and rodents. However, several hybrids between this species and Chelonoidis becki were discovered around Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island, apparently from some of the Floreana tortoises being transported there in the early 19th century, and there is an ongoing breeding program which is attempting to resurrect the Floreana subspecies.[2]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), also known as the Charles Island giant tortoise, is an extinct subspecies of the Galápagos tortoise endemic to the Galápagos archipelago in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean. The specific epithet niger (‘black’) probably refers to the colouration of the holotype specimen. The species name has often been misspelled as nigra, an error introduced in the 1980s when Chelonoidis was elevated to genus and mistakenly treated as feminine, an error recognized and fixed in 2017.
