Learn all about these incredible creatures, including how much a 100+ year-old tortoise weighs, and how the "Finch response" plays an important role in tortoise health.
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00:00Hi, we're here at the San Diego Zoo's Galapagos tortoise exhibit.
00:06We have a herd of 17 tortoises, including 10 males and 7 females.
00:11So this is our youngest Galapagos tortoise.
00:13She's 10 years old.
00:15She hatched here at the San Diego Zoo.
00:17If you notice on the front of her leg, she's got these big enlarged scales.
00:21They're kind of sharp and spiky.
00:23They protect her face when she pulls into her shell.
00:26It'll actually protect the soft skin on her neck and her face.
00:30And also the edges of the marginal scutes on her shell are scalloped, and that's for protection.
00:35As adults, these wear down and become flat, as do the scalation on her legs.
00:39When she becomes an adult, she doesn't have to worry about predators anymore.
00:42There are no natural predators for Galapagos tortoises, other than when they're babies.
00:48This is Speed. He is our oldest male Galapagos tortoise in the herd,
00:52as well as the oldest animal in the entire zoo.
00:55Speed came here in 1935, and he was already well into adulthood when he came to our zoo.
01:00He was already about 500 pounds then, which makes him well over 100 years old now.
01:05Speedy is our largest tortoise. He weighs in at about 617 pounds.
01:10He's actually very shy. You can see he's kind of tucked into a shell right now.
01:14He's got a very submissive personality, despite his size.
01:18So when you come to the San Diego Zoo and you visit the Galapagos tortoise exhibit,
01:22you can identify Speed here by looking at his number.
01:24He's got a white number 5 on the back of his shell.
01:26The boys in the herd have white numbers on the back of their shell,
01:29and the girls have red numbers on the back of their shell.
01:31That's one way you can tell them apart.
01:34So this is Winston. He's one of our male Galapagos tortoises.
01:37He's actually the second largest in our herd.
01:39This behavior that he's doing is actually something that they do in nature.
01:42It's called the finch response.
01:44And what it is, is a tortoise will stand up like this, extending their neck,
01:47and the Darwin finches that live on the Galapagos Islands land on their neck,
01:50and they pick off ectoparasites.
01:52It's a symbiotic relationship that they have with these birds.
01:55The birds benefit from getting the parasites.
01:57The tortoises benefit from having the parasites removed.
01:59Winston is showing this behavior here because he's enjoying the neck rubs.
02:02It's actually a good enrichment for the tortoises.
02:06This is Augustus. He is our alpha male of the entire Galapagos herd.
02:10He's from Santiago Island.
02:12He has the longest neck and the longest legs of everybody here.
02:15So tortoises from Santiago Island, like Augustus,
02:18are characterized by having an elongated shell that comes up high over their neck.
02:23It's called a saddleback shell.
02:25You can see these marginal scoots really lift up above his neck,
02:28so it allows him to really reach up high for forage.
02:31So this is Wallace. He's one of our male tortoises.
02:35Wallace is from the Santa Cruz Island.
02:37Tortoises from the Santa Cruz Island are characterized by having a very large, round, dome-shaped shell.
02:42The marginal scoots in the front don't lift up nearly as high as Augustus from Santiago Island.
02:47They come down lower, which means that he can't lift his head up as high to eat.
02:51In the wild, he would be foraging for grasses, cactus, and low-growing shrubs.
02:56Oliver and Isabel here are what we call an intermediate-phase Galapagos tortoise.
03:01They're from the volcano Darwin off of southern Isabel Island.
03:05Now, you'll notice their shells are not quite domed, and they're not quite a saddle shape.
03:10They're kind of an intermediate phase.
03:12They can forage for food on the ground, and they can also reach up a little bit high for food as well.
03:18There are several differences between male and female tortoises that you can notice.
03:22The first is the overall size.
03:24Oliver here is about twice as big as Isabel.
03:27The second way you can tell them apart is their tails.
03:31Oliver has a tail that's about a foot long, where Isabel has a tail that's only about three or four inches long.
03:36And the third way you can tell girls from boys is if you were to flip them on their backs,
03:40the boys have a concave plaster on, which is their bottom shell, and the females have a flat plaster on.
03:46I love their personalities.
03:48They have a real gentleness to them.
03:50They all have very individual personalities.
03:53I just have so much respect for them.
03:55They can live to be over 150 years old, which I just find to be amazing.
04:00And they're just big, gentle giants.