Spurred tortoise

Meet the Spurred tortoise!

It is one of the largest land tortoises in existence. It lives in Africa, in a strip of land located at the upper end of the Sahara desert, extending from Mauritania and Senegal to Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is a strip 8,000 km long and 500 km wide known as the Sahel.

It is an extremely dry and hot savannah area, almost desert-like. There he finds dried grasses, hay, straw and succulent plants that it needs to survive. Occasionally it can also feed on carrion.

It gets its name from the large and strong scales that the males have on their legs and that they use in their fights to reproduce with the females.

The carapace is quite flat, which gives them a slightly flattened shape.

What are its habits?

It usually dig deep burrows to protect myself from the heat.

Males can easily travel more than 100 km. in search of a female. They lay their eggs at any time of the year, with an average of 30 eggs each time, and there may be several clutches per year.

Conservation

Extinct

Extinct in the wild

Critically endangered

Endangered

Vulnerable

Near threatened

Least concern

Insufficient data

Not evaluated