Aldabra giant tortoise

How it lives

Sources differ on timing. One describes mating mostly in the north-west monsoon with nesting peaking in June to September and eggs taking two to five months to hatch; another lists breeding in February to May and July to September with about eight months of incubation. A female lays about 9 to 25 hard-shelled eggs, and fewer than half are usually fertile. Tortoises can live for well over a century, with some thought to be over 200 years old, but exact ages are hard to prove.

Where it goes

Aldabra giant tortoises do not migrate. They wander over their island to graze and find shade. On Curieuse, some tortoises stay near the ranger station and others roam freely across the island.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (version 2.3), mainly because the only wild population lives on Aldabra Atoll in Seychelles and climate change is a threat. That population is over 100,000, the largest of any giant tortoise. Sailors hunted the species almost to extinction in the 19th century, with only a few thousand left around 1870, and it recovered to tens of thousands by the 1960s and has been stable since. Tortoises have been reintroduced to other islands, including Curieuse, Cousin and Frégate. About 250 were released on Curieuse in 1978, with 134 counted in 2019 and 111 in March 2023.