Pinta giant tortoise7/26/2023 ![]() ![]() In general, saddleback tortoises live in arid zones and feed mostly on cactus. They are also found on the islands of Pinzon, Española and Isabela. Giant tortoises are found only in the Galapagos Islands and prefer to live in dry lowlands, although some are found in the misty highlands on Santa Cruz. Males can grow to be up to 4 feet long and can weigh up to 700 pounds.The “ saddleback” carapace, found on the Hood (Española) and Pinta varieties, allows for the tortoise’s long neck to emerge, permitting it to feed on the hard-to-reach vegetation of the drier islands.The “dome-shaped” carapace is found on larger varieties of tortoise from Santa Cruz and the Alcedo Volcano on Isabela, where the large tortoises feed on the relatively lush vegetation.The upper half of the shell, called the carapace, is distinct from the plastron, or lower half. There are two major shell designs of the giant tortoise.It is the fate of most voyagers, no sooner to discover what is most interesting in any locality, than they are hurried from it but I ought, perhaps, to be thankful that I obtained sufficient materials to establish this most remarkable fact in the distribution of organic beings.” I never dreamed that islands, about 50 or 60 miles apart, and most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted but we shall soon see that this is the case. “I have not, as yet, noticed by far the most remarkable feature in the natural history of this archipelago it is, that the different islands, to a considerable extent, are inhabited by a different set of beings. These differences, as described in The Voyage of the Beagle, contributed to the development of Darwin’s theory of evolution: One of the best ways to distinguish those still in existence, apart from geographic distribution, is by the differences in the shape of their shells. Of these 14 varieties, three are extinct. Fourteen subspecies, each in some way distinctive to the island of its residence, comprise the sole giant tortoise species. In fact, the word Galapagos is Spanish for “shape of a saddle,” which is what many tortoise shells actually resemble. The giant tortoise best symbolizes the Galapagos Islands. ![]()
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