Tortoise

Welcome to the week of the Tortoise. A tortoise is a land dwelling reptile that has both a endoskeleton and an exoskeleton in the form of its shell. One great way to tell you have a tortoise and not a turtle, though a tortoise is in the turtle family, is by looking at the feet. A turtle will have webbed flipper style feet better suited for swimming and a tortoise will have claws with morse stumpy appendages. Tortoises do not swim, my buddy Matt Schoebel told me that if you put it in the water it would sink like a rock.

Tortoises with lighter shells come from warmer climates and ones with darker shells come from cooler environments. There are about 40 different types of tortoises. The Aldabran and Galapagos Tortoises are the largest of the species and can weight up to and over 600 pounds. You can also tell the approximate age of a tortoise by counting the rings on the scutes (individual shell plates).

Tortoises dig burrows to lay their eggs in. The eggs hatch in about 3-4 months and unlike turtles which hatch and make a break for the water, baby tortoises hang out with their mother in her burrow for a couple of months before they leave.

Tortoises are cool characters and we have no shortage of them grooving around Timbavati Wildlife park. When you’re in the park if you’re lucky enough to see one go into it’s shell, listen to see if you can hear it exhale before it does. It has to expel the air in it’s body before it does.

That’s all for this week,

Ciao’