Discover Top Posts Tagged with #testudinidae

Chance encounter with a celebrity

(Gopherus polyphemus, 12/21/2025)

#reptiles #testudines #testudinidae #tortoises #gopher tortoise

[ID: a digital illustration of a brown tortoise with a long neck stretched up to eat a prickly pear fruit.]

The largest extant tortoise at over 900 lbs. They are found only on 7 of the Galapagos islands, and differ in size and shape depending on each island's ecosystem. They can live over 100 years in the wild.

#Galapagos #galapagos tortoise #tortoise #testudinidae #herpetology

A Galapagos giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger) on Isla Santa Cruz, Galapagos, Ecuador

by Nik Borrow

#galapagos tortoises #galapagos giant tortoises #turtles #reptiles #chelonoidis niger #chelonoidis #Testudinidae #testudines #reptilia #chordata #wildlife: ecuador #wildlife: south america

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

Yuri Gagarian, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin are all heroes of the 1960s Space Race, but there is another name that has been forgotten by history: Testudo horsfieldii. More commonly known as the Central Asian tortoise, two members of this species were the first Earthlings to successfully circle around the Moon and return safely to Earth, on the Soviet ship Zond 5 in September of 1968!