GIANT TORTOISE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23081, 6 January 1937, Page 4

GIANT TORTOISE

EXHIBIT FOR AUCKLAND ZOO ARRIVAL FROM SEYCHELLES Weighing about 2801 b, and possessing a shell 36in long, a giant tor - toise from the Seychelles Islands was landed from the steamer Orangemoor at Auckland on Monday. The tortoise is for the Auckland Zoological Gardens and will make an interesting addition to the collection of tortoises already there. It will be placed on view immediately. The giant tortoise is probably the most long-lived of animals and the new exhibit, although between 40 and 50 years old, is probably less than half grown. When taken to the London Zoo in 1908, a tortoise of the same species weighed 8701 b, while another, which is still kept at the barrack grounds at Port Louis, Mauritius, is known to have been fully matured for at least 150 years. Many years ago the giant tortoise was exterminated in its original home on Aldabra Island, in the Indian Ocean, but specimens were introduced to the Seychelles Islands and kept in a state of semidomesticity by the planters. In former times even larger land tortoises had a wide distribution and have been found in fossil form in France and India with shells 6ft in length. The tortoises already at the Auckland Zoo are representative of three species, the snapping turtle, the black Japanese water tortoise, and the leopard tortoise.