PfG: Giant Tortoises Galore!

La Vanille may have been my most favorite stop of a marvelous day! I knew there were supposed to be more of the giant tortoises here but I had no idea there would be as many as there were.

Just inside the entrance were these metal sculptures of a tortoise and a dodo, both of which we'd learn more about during our visit.

There are actually as many Nile crocodiles at the park as there are giant tortoises, around 2,000. We didn't see nearly all of them but the guy on the right was happy to smile at us for a photo.

We were able to go inside the large giant tortoise enclosure to interact with the Aldabra Giant Tortoises that we had first seen in the Seychelles, but always before at a distance. Cathy was having so much fun feeding them she was like a little kid at Christmas!

I really tried not to overload with tortoise photos here but you'll just have to go along with me, there were so many to choose from. :)

We paid a little extra to be able to feed these gentle giants. The leafy stalks were definitely a hit with them, first the leaves and then the stalk. Since they are tortoises they don't need to be in water and these don't even need to drink much water, they get most of the liquid they need for their bodies from the food that they eat.

Each of the tortoises had a number on its back. I think i mentioned in a previous post that these creatures are originally from one of the Seychelle islands and were previously endangered.

Their carapace can reach almost four feet in length and their average weight is os around 550 pounds.

We were wandering around the enclosure when Mark told me to look up. When I did this is what I saw! The spider was enormous! The only camera angle that gave me a good photo was looking at it from beneath it, that's why it looks like it's just hanging in the sky even though it's on its web with its lunch waiting nearby.

The tortoises would sleep or wander around the enclosure. There were some who would follow you around if you still had food and they wanted it, or even if you didn't have food anymore. They don't have teeth but instead have jaws that are lined with horny, sharp ridges that come together like a pair of pinking shears. You don't want to get a finger too close to those jaws!

The tortoises were so funny, they liked to be petted and scratched, just like a dog. Unlike a dog they are rough and leathery to the touch, but they are cute in their own way. Interacting with them was pretty magical.

They had rooms full of baby tortoises as well. It takes a giant tortoise about 20 years to reach breeding size. The eggs they lay are about the size of a tennis ball and are buried in moist sand or loose soil. When the babies hatch they are about three inches in length. These tortoises don't all stay on the reserve, they are sent to other islands in the Indian Ocean to live in the wild.

This big guy in the middle is over 100 years old, not that old for a giant tortoise as they can live to be 250. His name is Domino and they know his approximate age because he was given as a gift to a little boy on his birthday in 1915.

One endemic species to Mauritius that has gone extinct is the Dodo bird, made famous by Louis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It's now the national symbol of Mauritius.

A big clumsy bird, unable to fly, the last dodo died in 1681, but has become famous anyway!

Any time there is lizard I need to take a photo for Kara. There were three of these big green ones here.

The Rodrigues Fruit Bats had us laughing as we watched them eat. Their wild population had declined to around 70-100 bats by the 1970s. Thanks to their being protected by law and the reforestation of Rodrigues Island their numbers have increased to over 20,000. They are hanging around here eating. The funny thing to watch was that they ate upside down, which seemed weird in and of itself, then if they had to pee, they'd turn right side up, do their business then turn upside down again.

That face and those claws are pretty scary looking if you ask me. They have the same type of hooks on the "elbow" of each wing.

You knew there had to be some sort of flower photo!

One of the things we were most disappointed about with missing Madagascar was that we wouldn't get a chance to glimpse the lemurs there. It was nice to see a few of them at La Vanille.