Galapagos Giant Tortoise Postcard

Galapagos Giant Tortoise greets visitors to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. Among the important work done at the station is the rearing of young giant tortoises, which are endangered in the wild on the Galapagos Islands because of predation of introduced species, such as rats. The Galapagos tortoise or Galapagos giant tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra) is the largest living species of tortoise and the 14th-heaviest living reptile. Modern giant tortoises can weigh up to 250 kg; even larger versions, now extinct, roamed every continent except Antarctica and Australia. Today, they exist only the Galapagos Islands, and Aldabra in the Indian Ocean. The tortoise is native to seven of the Galapagos Islands, a volcanic archipelago about 620 miles (more than 1,000 kilometers) west of the Ecuadorian mainland. With life spans in the wild of over 100 years, it is one of the longest-lived vertebrates.