African spurred tortoise
Centrochelys sulcata
— Where the name comes from
Centrochelys is “spurred turtle”, from the Greek kéntron, the goad: on its thighs it carries two or three conical tubercles. Sulcata means “furrowed”, for the deep growth rings that score each scute like the rings of a trunk. It is the largest mainland tortoise in the world, after the two island giants of the Galápagos and Aldabra.
— Facts
- Group
- Reptiles · Reptilia
- Order
- Turtles and tortoises
- Habitat
- The Sahel, thorn savannah, the southern edges of the Sahara
- Range
- The Saharan and Sahelian belt, from Senegal to Ethiopia
- Size
- 60–85 cm of carapace, 60–100 kg
- Diet
- Dry grasses, succulents, leaves
- Lifespan
- over 70 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It digs tunnels as much as four metres deep to escape the heat.
- 02
It can go months without drinking, taking water from plants.
- 03
It grows fast: in ten years it goes from the size of a coin to twenty kilos.
— What sets it apart
Its tunnels are the Sahel’s block of flats: jackals, snakes, rodents, spiders and lizards live in them and would not survive the summer without that shade. The same animal is also the most embarrassing case in the exotic pet trade — it is sold as a little house tortoise and within a decade becomes an eighty-kilo block digging under the foundations. In the United States there are shelters that take in nothing but abandoned animals of this species.
