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The Galapagos Tortoise for sale are herbivorous animals with a diet comprising cactus, grasses, leaves, vines, and fruit. Fruits such as the apple and mango are also treats to the tortise. Fresh young grass is a favorite food of the tortoises, and others are the ‘poison apple’ (Hippomane mancinella) (toxic to humans), the endemic guava (Psidium galapageium), the water fern (Azolla microphylla), and the bromeliad (Tillandsia insularis). Tortoises eat a large quantity of food when it is available at the expense of incomplete digestion.

By acquiring most of their moisture from the dew and sap in vegetation (particularly the Opuntia cactus), tortoises can go for long periods without actually drinking. They can also survive for over a year being forcefully deprived of all liquids, breaking down their body fat producing water as a side product.

The tortoise normally eat an average of 70~80 pounds (32~36 kg) a day.

Anatomy and Morphology

The tortoises have very large shells (carapace) made of bone. The bony plates of the shell are integral to the skeleton, fused with the ribs in a rigid protective structure.

Naturalist Charles Darwin remarked “These animals grow to an immense size …

several so large that it required six or eight men to lift them from the ground.” This is due to the phenomenon of island gigantism whereby in the absence of natural predation,

the largest tortoises had a survival advantage and no disadvantage in fleeing or fending off predators.

When threatened, it can withdraw its head,

neck and all forelimbs into its shell for protection, presenting a protected shield to a would-be predator. The legs have hard scales that also provide armour when withdrawn. Tortoises keep a characteristic scute pattern on their shell throughout life. These have annual growth bands but are not useful for aging as the outer layers are worn off. There is little variation in the dull-brown colour of the shell or scales.

Physical features (including shape of the shell) relate to the habitat of each of the subspecies. These differences were noted by Captain Porter even before Charles Darwin. Larger islands with more wet highlands such as Santa Cruz and the Alcedo Volcano on Isabela have lush vegetation near the ground. Tortoises here tend to have ‘dome-back’ shells. These animals have restricted upward head movement due to shorter necks, and also have shorter limbs.

These are the heaviest and largest of the subspecies.

Smaller, drier islands such as Española and Pinta are inhabited by tortoises with ‘saddleback’ shells comprising a flatter carapace which is elevated above the neck and flared above the hind feet. Along with longer neck and limbs, this allows them to browse taller vegetation. On these drier islands the Galápagos Opuntia cactus (a major source of their fluids) has evolved a taller, tree-like form. This is evidence of an evolutionary arms race between progressively taller tortoises and correspondingly taller cacti. Saddlebacks are smaller in size than domebacks. They tend to have a yellowish color on lower mandible and throat. At one extreme, the Sierra Negra volcano population that inhabits southern Isabela Island has a very flattened “tabletop” shell. However, there is no saddleback/domeback dualism; tortoises can also be of ‘intermediate’ type with characteristics of both.

Sexual dimorphism is more apparent in the ‘intermediate’ and saddleback populations since males have more angled and higher front openings. Males also have a longer tail and a shorter and concave undershell and

which has thickened knobs at the back edge, which facilitates mating. Male are larger than females: adult males weigh in at 272 to 317 kilograms (600 to 700 lb) females 136 to 181 kilograms (300 to 400 lb).

Range and habitat

The Galápagos tortoise is unique to the Galápagos Islands,

a group of thirteen major islands and many smaller islets, all of volcanic origin lying west of Ecuador in South America.