Harriet the Giant Galapagos Tortoise Dies
Posted on July 5, 2006
The BBC reports that Harriet, a popular Giant Galapagos tortoise living at the Australia Zoo, has passed at away at age 175 from a heart attack.
Last year staff at Australia Zoo, where Harriet had lived for 17 years, held a party to celebrate her 175th birthday. Some people believe that Harriet was studied by British naturalist Charles Darwin.Darwin took several young Giant Galapagos tortoises back to London after his epic voyage on board HMS Beagle.
DNA testing has suggested the giant creature was born around 1830, a few years before Darwin visited the Galapagos archipelago in 1835.
Harriet had recently celebrated her 175th birthday party at the Australia Zoo. More information about the tortoises can be found on the Galapagos Conservation Trust website. This excerpt about how they remove unwanted insects is interesting.
Giant tortoises have an interesting way of ridding themselves of ticks and other parasites. When they see a Darwin's finch or mockingbird they raise themselves up on their legs and stretch up their necks, allowing the little birds to hop around, removing the parasites from their skin in a classic example of symbiosis. When a tortoise feels threatened it withdraws its head, neck and forelimbs into its shell for protection, presenting a daunting shield to a would-be predator. When saddleback tortoises do this, a large unprotected gap remains at the top of their shell opening. This was originally not a problem because there were no natural predators in Galapagos but it made them very vulnerable when humans introduced dogs and other predators. Significantly, all 3 extinct races of tortoise were saddlebacks.
The Galapagos Conservation Trust site also say there are about 15,000 of the tortoises left on the Galapagos Islands. They are an endangered species.
