Radiated tortoise
Astrochelys radiata
— Where the name comes from
Astrochelys is “star turtle”, from ástron, the star; radiata insists on the same design. Each scute of the carapace carries a yellow blotch with rays running out to the edges, and the whole thing seen from above is a miniature night sky. Many consider it the most beautiful tortoise in the world, and that is very nearly why it is dying out.
— Facts
- Group
- Reptiles · Reptilia
- Order
- Turtles and tortoises
- Habitat
- Spiny bush and dry forest of southern Madagascar
- Range
- Southern Madagascar
- Size
- 30–40 cm of carapace, 10–16 kg
- Diet
- Grasses, succulents, prickly pear, fallen fruit
- Lifespan
- over 100 years
— Characteristics
- 01
The pattern of rays differs in every individual, like a fingerprint.
- 02
Among the Antandroy and Mahafaly it is a taboo animal that is not touched.
- 03
It drinks by licking dew from plants and from its own shell.
— What sets it apart
In April 2018, in a house in the town of Toliara, Malagasy police found more than ten thousand of them heaped in rooms covered in excrement, bound for the Asian pet market: it was the largest seizure of reptiles ever made. Local taboos had protected the species for centuries, but taboos do not bind outsiders, and in twenty years the population has fallen by over eighty per cent.
