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African Spurred Tortoise — printable fact sheet
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African Spurred Tortoise
Centrochelys sulcata
The sulcata is the largest mainland tortoise on Earth — outweighed only by the island giants of Aldabra and Galapagos — and it can pass 100 kg. It survives the Sahel by engineering its own climate: it excavates burrows that can run 3 m deep and over 10 m long, where humidity sta…
Did you know?
- Unlike many tortoises, the African Spurred Tortoise can grow rapidly, sometimes gaining several pounds per year when young.
- Rival males fight by ramming and levering with the forward projection of the plastron, trying to flip each other; an overturned tortoise in Sahel sun can die within hours. Sulcata burrows have been recorded with dozens of animals of other species sheltering inside a single tunnel. They will eat dry, coarse grass with almost no nutritional value, relying on a huge hindgut fermentation chamber to extract what they can.
What I learned
Draw the african spurred tortoise
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