๐ฆ Animal world ๐ Reptiles and amphibians
The tortoise
๐ In short
The tortoise is a slow, patient animal that lives on land and carries its house on its back! Its shell is a tall hard dome, with only its head, legs and tail sticking out. When it's scared, it pulls everything inside the shell.
๐คฉ Did you know?
- A giant tortoise can be 1.5 meters long and weigh 250 kilograms.
- Many tortoises sleep through the cold winter.
- A tortoise lays its eggs in a hole in the ground, then covers them.
- You can roughly tell some tortoises' age from the rings on the plates of their shell.
๐ Find out more
๐ Strong armor
A tortoise's shell is part of its body, not a house it can leave, because it's joined to its backbone and ribs. So a tortoise can never take its shell off.
๐ Its food
Most tortoises eat plants: grass, leaves, flowers and fruit. They have no teeth, just a sharp beak to cut their food.
๐ก A very long life
The tortoise is one of the longest-living animals, and can live more than 100 years! Some giant tortoises have lived more than 150 years.
๐ฏ Giant tortoises
On the Galรกpagos and Aldabra islands live giant tortoises so big that a small child could sit on their backs.
๐ธ More pictures
๐งฉ Test yourself
1 Can a tortoise come out of its shell?
2 How many years can a tortoise live?
3 The tortoise is one of the longest-living animals, and can live more than ?? years!
4 Which picture shows โThe tortoiseโ?
๐ฆ Discover more
๐ท Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons
- Childzy at en.wikipedia ยท CC BY-SA 3.0
- Mayer Richard ยท CC BY-SA 3.0
- Edgovan22 ยท CC BY-SA 3.0
- Muhammad Mahdi Karim ยท CC BY-SA 2.5
