Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Aldabra tortoise

Dipsochelys dussumieri

Description:

The carapace is a brown or tan color with a high domed shape. It has stocky, heavily scaled legs to support its heavy body. The neck of the Aldabra giant tortoise is very long, even for its great size, which helps the animal to exploit tree branches up to a meter from the ground as a food source. Similar in size to the famous Galápagos giant tortoise, its carapace averages 120 centimeters (47 in) in length. The average weight of a male is around 250 kilograms (550 lb), but one male at the Fort Worth Zoological Park weighs over 360.25 kilograms (794.2 lb). Females are generally smaller than males, with average specimens measuring 90 centimeters (35 in) in length and weighing 150 kilograms (330 lb). (information from Wikipedia)

Notes:

These tortoises were spotted at National Zoo in Washington, D.C.. The first and third images show males, and the second image shows a female.

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

No Comments

Aaron_G
Spotted by
Aaron_G

Washington, USA

Spotted on Jul 25, 2012
Submitted on Jul 31, 2012

Related Spottings

Giant tortoise of Seychelles Aldabra giant tortoise Aldabra Tortoise Aldabra tortoise

Nearby Spottings

Golden Lion Tamarin Spotting Red lionfish Oscar fish
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team