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Common Name: Galápagos Tortoise

Scientific Name: Geochelone nigra

 

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Reptilia

Order: Testudines

Family: Testudinidae

Genus: Geochelone

Species: G. nigra

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My animal is the Galapagos tortoise; it is called that because they only live in the Galapagos Islands. I will be talking about its General description, its habitat and population, and its food. I found a lot of interesting facts about my animal. I will be explaining a lot more stuff in better detail later on.

 

First, Galapagos Tortoises are very large; in fact they are the largest tortoises in the world. They weigh one hundred to six hundred pounds. Then they are 4ft to 5ft wide. They have a nice of black with brown spots.

 

Second, they only live in one specific area which is in Galapagos. There are 10,000 to 15,000 still alive. They are putting them in National parks to keep them alive. Mainly because the humans take the shells and sell them for a lot of money. They really don’t have any predators.

 

Finally the tortoises are herbivores. Their main diet contains cactuses grass and vines. The cool part is they eat so much that they could last up to 1 year without eating food. Their favorite things to eat are papayas.

 

The Galapagos tortoises are very unique. I can't believe they are able to live a whole year without eating. How about the fact that they are the largest tortoise’s alive. Hopefully these animals can live long enough to where we have more options to help them.

 

Author: Nathaniel S

Published: 02/2007

 

“kids planet” http://www.kidsplanet.org/factsheets/tortoise.html “Honolulu zoo” http://www.honoluluzoo.org/galapagos_tortoise.htm “GCT” http://www.gct.org/tortoise.html

 

Photo Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geochelone_nigra

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