Photos By Location| Galapagos Islands: Sea Turtles and Tortoises | 1 | 2 |
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Tortoise in Captivity — Many tortoises can be found at the Darwin Research Center, on Isla Santa Cruz. Usually, they're kept around for studying, but there are also numerous attempts to promote certain types of mating in order to repopulate some of the islands. |
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Baby Tortoises in Captivity — Several species of giant tortoise have been unable to steadily reproduce as their ecology suffers changes from the impact of other animal species. The Darwin Research Center encourages mating by dropping Spanish Fly into their water dishes and constantly airing the movie 9 1/2 Weeks, then repopulates the islands as best they can. |
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Tortoise Exploring — Coming forward to investigate his visitors at a rate of about one step every ten seconds. |
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Tortoise Head — A face only a mother could love. |
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Keith and Tortoise — A giant tortoise sees Keith and raises his head high to investigate. Javier, our guide, says that he's very used to human company, and this his way of showing curiosity. However, he also said that this is how two males "challenge" one another for land or a mate: by craning their necks higher and higher, until the other one gives. (How impressively non-violent.) Keith opted not to take up the challenge. |
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