Animalia > Chordata > Testudines > Testudinidae > Aldabrachelys > Aldabrachelys gigantea

Aldabrachelys gigantea (Aldabra giant tortoise)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The Reunion giant tortoise (Cylindraspis indica) is an extinct species of tortoise in the Testudinidae family. It was endemic to Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean. This tortoise was numerous in the 17th and early 18th centuries. They were killed in vast numbers by European sailors, and finally became extinct in the 1840s.
View Wikipedia Record: Aldabrachelys gigantea

Infraspecies

Aldabrachelys gigantea arnoldi (Seychelles saddle-backed tortoise)
Aldabrachelys gigantea daudinii (Daudins Giant Tortoise)
Aldabrachelys gigantea gigantea
Aldabrachelys gigantea hololissa (Seychelles giant tortoise)

Endangered Species

Status: Extinct
View IUCN Record: Aldabrachelys gigantea

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  258.383 lbs (117.20 kg)
Female Weight [1]  72.753 lbs (33.00 kg)
Female Maturity [1]  25 years
Male Maturity [1]  25 years
Gestation [1]  4 months 11 days
Litter Size [1]  14
Litters / Year [1]  2
Maximum Longevity [2]  152 years

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Aldabra Island xeric scrub Seychelles Afrotropic Deserts and Xeric Shrublands  

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Aldabra Special Reserve 86487 Seychelles    

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles Yes

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Eulemur fulvus (brown lemur)1
Foudia eminentissima (Comoros Fody)1
Pteropus niger (greater mascarene flying fox)1
Pteropus seychellensis (Seychelles flying fox)1
Varecia variegata (ruffed lemur)1

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 2de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 3The Growth, Ecology, and Population Structure of the Giant Tortoises on Aldabra, P. Grubb, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond. B, Vol. 260, 1971, pp. 327–372.
♦ 4VEGETATION OF ALDABRA, A REASSESSMENT, R.J. Hnatiuk and L.F.H. Merton, ATOLL RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. 239, THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1979
♦ 5Plant Dispersal by the Aldabran Giant Tortoise, Geochelone gigantea (Schweigger), S.H. Hnatiuk, Oecologia (Berl.) 36, 345-350 (1978)
♦ 6VERTEBRATE SEED DISPERSERS IN MAURITIUS: FRUIT TRAITS AND FRUIT TRAIT PREFERENCES, Gabor von Bethlenfalvy, Diploma thesis, University of Zurich, Switzerland
♦ 7Feeding Ecology and Seasonal Movements of Giant Tortoises on Aldabra Atoll, C.W.D. Gibson and J. Hamilton, Oecologia (Berlin) (1983) 56:84-92
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0