Red-footed Tortoise

Class: Reptiles

Order: Turtles

Family: Testudinidae (Land Tortoises)

Weight: Up to 28 kg

Height: About 15-20 cm

Body length: 30 to 45 cm

Coloration: The shell is coal-black with yellow-orange spots in the center of the scutes. The head and front legs have red or orange markings. There is a wide yellow-orange or red stripe behind each eye. Young individuals have yellow or light brown shells, which turn black with age, retaining yellow spots on the scutes.

Age of sexual maturity: Sexual maturity is reached at 4-5 years

Incubation period: They lay eggs

Lifespan: Up to 30 years or more

Habitat range: The red-footed tortoise is found across a vast area of Central and South America: from southeastern Panama and the Choco region in the Colombian Andes eastward through Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, to eastern Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. It is also found in Trinidad and many Caribbean islands.

Diet: Their diet primarily consists of fruits or seed pods, often consuming fruits from cacti, figs, pecans, spondias, annonas, philodendrons, bromeliads, and more. They also eat grasses, leaves, flowers, roots, and shoots from a wide variety of plants, as well as fungi, live invertebrates (such as ants, termites, beetles, butterflies, snails, and worms), and carrion.

Did you know?

• The sturdy shell of the red-footed tortoise can withstand a load 200 times greater than the tortoise’s own weight.
• Red-footed tortoises help disperse plants: when they eat fruits, the seeds pass through their feces and subsequently germinate.