In the wild, they can easily live to over 100 years old, but aging them is notoriously difficult, with size not being a good indicator of age. The current oldest land animal on Earth is an Aldabra Giant Tortoise named Jonathon, who is reportedly 190 years old. In the wild, there is a distinct breeding season with mating attempts between November to March, and nesting occurring from February to May, after which the hatchlings emerge from September to December.įamously, Aldabra Giant Tortoises are known for living extraordinarily long lives.
Aldabra Giant Tortoise shells are usually light to dark brown in color, but older females develop smoother shells often with darker coloration due to buffing from mating activity. Adult females are generally smaller than males to facilitate mating, where the concave plastron (bottom shell) of a male tortoise allows him to more easily mount the female. Adult male Aldabra Giant Tortoises can reach up to 1.3m (4ft) in length and can weigh up to 350kg (770lbs) in captivity. This truly giant species, a classic case of so-called island gigantism, is distinguishable from their cousins in Galápagos by their narrow faces and pronounced domed carapace (top shell). Both groups of giant tortoises were once widespread across the region, but human hunting of tortoises led to the extinction of all, except for the giant tortoises on the Aldabra Atoll, from where they get their name. Meanwhile, Cylindraspis, another more ancient group of giant tortoises, had colonized the Mascarene Islands. Origins of the species branch back approximately 17.5 million years to Madagascar from where they dispersed to islands of the Seychelles.
They shared a common ancestor with the Galapagos Tortoise around 25-30 million years ago. One of two remaining species of giant tortoise on Earth, the Aldabra Giant Tortoise, is the last extant species of a group of giant tortoise that inhabited islands of the Western Indian Ocean.
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