46 Fun Facts About Tortoise

Tortoises are the longest-living what?

Land animals, not the whole animal kingdom: tortoises can top 150 years, but Greenland sharks are estimated to live at least 272.

Which country's royal family kept Tu'i Malila, a tortoise said to have been a gift from Captain Cook?

Tonga's royal tortoise Tu'i Malila was a radiated tortoise, a species found naturally only in Madagascar, so a ship must have carried her there.

Adwaita, an Aldabra giant tortoise claimed to be over 250 when he died, lived at a zoo in which Indian city?

Kolkata's Alipore Zoo lost Adwaita in 2006 after a crack in his shell left a wound that led to his death.

Timothy the tortoise spent 38 years as a mascot aboard which country's warships?

Britain's Royal Navy found Timothy aboard a Portuguese privateer in 1854, and she sailed as a ship's mascot through the Crimean War.

Which Greek philosopher argued that swift Achilles could never overtake a tortoise with a head start?

Zeno of Elea reasoned that Achilles must first reach where the tortoise was, by which time it has crept ahead, again and again forever.

What is the easiest way to tell a male tortoise from a female?

Look at the tail: males grow much longer tails, and a male's plastron curves inward to aid mating.

In a 2014 study, red-footed tortoises learned to earn rewards by using what?

A touchscreen: the tortoises learned to pick one side of the screen, and kept that preference when tested in a real arena.

Which region of the world has no native tortoises?

Australasia lacks the land tortoises found on every other continent except Antarctica, yet Australians traditionally called their freshwater turtles 'tortoises'.

Tortoises can't swim, so how did giant tortoises first reach the Galápagos from South America?

By drifting at sea: the first giant tortoises floated over from the South American coast, where their closest living relatives are found.

Most traditional 'tortoiseshell' for combs and jewellery came from which animal?

Hawksbill turtles' mottled shell plates were the prized material, and hunting them for it nearly drove the species to extinction.

What feeds newly hatched tortoises until they are strong enough to find food?

An embryonic egg sac: a hatchling may sit in its egg while the sac is absorbed, and until then it can barely move.

What do tortoises generally eat?

Grasses, weeds, greens and flowers are the usual menu, yet in the Seychelles a giant tortoise was filmed chasing, killing and eating a tern chick.

How do tortoises communicate during both combat and courtship?

Ramming: males shove rivals with their shells, and a courting Galápagos male rams a female until she draws in her legs.

Which Hindu god took the form of Kurma, a giant tortoise, to hold up a sinking mountain?

Vishnu became Kurma because Mount Mandara, used as the rod to churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality, had begun to sink.

Which Greek god, on the day he was born, made the first lyre from a tortoise shell?

Hermes also stole Apollo's cattle, and ended the quarrel by trading him the lyre, which became Apollo's emblem.

Two Russian tortoises became the first animals to do what?

Fly to and circle the Moon: Zond 5 missed its Kazakhstan landing zone and splashed down in the Indian Ocean with the tortoises alive.

In which Roald Dahl story does Mr Hoppy secretly swap a neighbour's pet tortoise for ever-bigger ones?

Esio Trot is 'tortoise' backwards, and Mrs Silver credits a made-up chant for Alfie's growth while Mr Hoppy does the swapping.

Which Greek playwright is said to have died when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head?

Aeschylus had reportedly been staying outdoors because an oracle foretold that a falling house would kill him that day.

On the Galápagos' dry islands, saddle-shaped shells help tortoises feed on what?

Cactus pads grow high on the dry islands, and a shell raised at the front lets a tortoise stretch its neck up to reach them.

Galápagos tortoises survive up to a year without food or water, so why did whalers pack them into ships' holds?

As fresh meat: pirates, whalers and fur sealers took so many live tortoises that several island populations were wiped out.

What was Lonesome George?

The last Pinta Island tortoise was found in 1971 on an island stripped by feral goats, and decades of attempts to breed him all failed.

Which giant tortoise fathered about 900 offspring in a breeding programme before retiring in 2020?

Diego got the headlines, yet a quieter male known as E5 fathered most of the programme's other young.

Harriet, who died at Australia Zoo in 2006 aged about 175, was long claimed to have been collected by whom?

Charles Darwin probably never had her: DNA tests showed Harriet came from an island that he never visited.

Jonathan, the oldest known living tortoise as of 2025, was taken from the Seychelles to which island?

Saint Helena's governor gave Jonathan an official birthday of 4 December in 2022, since nobody had recorded his real one.

Why is Jonathan the giant tortoise's age only an estimate?

He arrived fully grown in 1882, and reaching full size takes at least 50 years, so his hatching is put no later than 1832.

Jonathan the tortoise's vet said he was blind and could not smell, but had excellent what?

Hearing: unable to see or smell his food, Jonathan was fed by hand, and his vet took to wearing thick gloves after a nip.

Jonathan appears on the reverse of which coin of his home island?

Commemorative stamps marked his supposed 190th birthday in 2022, and visitors got a certificate with a photo of his first known footprint.

Aldabra Atoll is home to roughly how many giant tortoises, the world's largest population?

The atoll's isolation from humans saved a species whose Indian Ocean cousins were all gone by 1840.

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, why did the Mock Turtle's old schoolmaster get called Tortoise?

He taught us: Lewis Carroll's pun works because 'tortoise' and 'taught us' sound alike, and the master was really an old turtle.

An isolated Aldabra tortoise population lives on Changuu, an island near which African island?

One tortoise there is reportedly 200 years old.

The desert tortoise is the official state reptile of Nevada and which other state?

California's state reptile spends most of its life in burrows, which keep it cool and save water in the desert.

The desert tortoise's species name agassizii honours a zoologist from which country?

Switzerland's Louis Agassiz became a Harvard professor of zoology, yet he rejected evolution for the rest of his life.

Why is the gopher tortoise called a keystone species?

Its burrows shelter other animals: more than 350 kinds use them, and Florida law protects the burrows as well as the tortoise.

The gopher tortoise's species name polyphemus refers to which figure from Greek myth?

A cave-dwelling giant: the name honours Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops whom Odysseus blinded to escape from his cave.

Before returning to the Galápagos, Lonesome George's preserved body was shown at a museum in which city?

New York's taxidermists received his body frozen and shipped from the islands, and after preserving him they sent him home in 2017.

The African spurred (sulcata) tortoise lives along the southern edge of which desert?

Sahara-edge sulcatas dig burrows metres deep and spend the hottest part of the day inside them.

In Aesop's fable, why does the hare lose the race to the tortoise?

He takes a nap midway, sure of his speed, and wakes to find the tortoise has already won; the fable blames idleness, not slowness.

The Galápagos Islands, home of the giant tortoises, belong to which country?

Ecuador protects the islands as a national park, and a breeding programme there rebuilt Española's tortoise population to about 2,000.

After laying and burying their eggs, what do most mother tortoises do?

Leave them unattended: when the hatchlings emerge months later, they dig their way out and fend for themselves.

How do tortoise hatchlings break out of their eggs?

The V-shaped notch on a female's plastron below the tail is there to help the eggs pass in the first place.

In British English, what are small freshwater turtles usually called?

Terrapins: Britons usually keep 'tortoise' for land species and 'turtle' for sea ones, while Americans often call them all turtles.

Tortoises symbolise longevity in which culture in particular?

Chinese diviners of the Shang era carved questions on turtle shells, heated them and read the cracks, leaving China's earliest known writing.

Giant tortoise genome studies found gene variants involved in what, possibly explaining their long lives?

DNA repair fixes damaged genes, and people with faulty repair genes can age early and develop cancer.

In most tortoises, what decides whether an egg hatches as a male or a female?

The nest's temperature: chromosomes don't set the sex, so cooler eggs mostly hatch as males and warmer ones as females.

Which castle was home to Timothy the tortoise when she died in 2004?

Powderham Castle: Timothy had been taken for a male until 1926, when an attempt to mate her revealed she was female.

Too much protein in a herbivorous tortoise's diet has been linked to what problem?

Shell deformities such as 'pyramiding', raised humps on each shell plate, have been blamed on high-protein diets, though dry conditions may play a part.