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Galapagos Tortoises

By grrlscientist on January 22, 2007.

The humping tortoises were spotted in the highlands of Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands.
The male didn't seem at all put off by having half a dozen voyeurs taking photos. The
female was totally unimpressed by everyone, including the male, and wanted to go
back to sleep.

Image: Annie.

As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there is a world out there that is populated by millions of unique species. We are a part of this world whether we like it or not: we have a choice to either preserve these species or to destroy them in search of short-term monetary gains. But if we decide to destroy these other life forms, the least we can do is to know what we are destroying by learning that they exist. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be credited.

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He just needed to draw her out her shell.

By biosparite (not verified) on 22 Jan 2007 #permalink

I'm reminded of Ogden Nash's "The Turtle."

The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks,
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle,
In such a fix, to be so fertile.

;-)

those tortoises best be married, or the lord is gonna extinctify 'em.

why didn't i post this picture ages ago? it seems to be the most popular of them all, even moreso than the insect love photos!

maybe someone out there has more vertebrate sex pictures to share with me?

I hope that male is Lonesome George, a giant tortoise who is the last of his species. Last winter, I read a great book about the tortoises and how explorers killed and ate nearly all of them and that's where I learned about him. He made me so sad. They said in the book that they'd been trying to get him to get it on with a female of the closest related species, but he didn't seem interested. George, I hope ya got your mojo back!

Sorry, no, that's not Lonesome George, though I did meet him. He lives in an enclosure at the Darwin Research Centre on Santa Cruz. There is a tortoise breeding programme there, but it doesn't look as if George's line is going to continue.