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This week let\u2019s learn about giant tortoises! What\u2019s the difference between a turtle and a tortoise? The most basic difference is that the turtle lives in water and the tortoise lives on land. And there are some really, really big tortoises in the world!\n\nA Galapagos tortoise:\n\n\n\nShow transcript:\n\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\n\nThis episode was supposed to be about strange reptiles, with more awesome suggestions from listeners. I was going to include some information about a couple of giant tortoises\u2026but the more I researched, the longer that part of the episode became, until it just took over. So here\u2019s an episode about giant tortoises, and we\u2019ll have the strange reptiles episode in a couple of weeks instead. I\u2019m going to give a shout-out to listeners Leo and Finn, who have been waiting patiently to hear their suggestions. Sorry you\u2019ll have to wait a little bit longer.\n\nThe biggest tortoise in the world is the Galapagos Tortoise, which as you probably know, or can guess from the name, lives in the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. In fact, the islands were named after the tortoises. Galapago means tortoise in Old Spanish. There are eleven species of Galapagos tortoise alive today, but there used to be 15. The others were mostly eaten to extinction by sailors who would stop by the Galapagos Islands, capture tortoises, and sail away with them to eat later.\n\nThe biggest individual Galapagos tortoise ever measured was a male named Goliath. When he died in 2002, Goliath was 4.5 feet long, or 1.36 meters, 2 feet three inches high, or 68.5 cm, and weighed 919 pounds, or 417 kg. He was only 42 years old when he died, but Galapagos tortoises frequently live for more than 150 years. Adult tortoises have no predators except humans. They\u2019re just too big, too heavy, too strong, and have too tough a shell for other predators to bother with.\n\nThe Galapagos tortoise eats plants, including grass, leaves, fruit, and even cacti. Its neck is long, which allows it to reach plants that are farther away, since it can\u2019t exactly climb trees. It can survive up to six months without water, getting most of its moisture from the plants it eats, but some tortoises on more arid islands will lick dew from rocks to get moisture. Some of the boulders have been licked by tortoises so much over the centuries that they have deep grooves worn in the surface from turtle tongues.\n\nAs I\u2019ve mentioned before in other episodes, sometimes herbivores will eat meat when they can get it. The Galapagos tortoise does this too on occasion. There\u2019s a type of finch on the Galapagos that cleans parasites off the tortoises, and to help the finch reach as much of its skin as possible, the tortoise will stand up straight with its legs extended. The finches hop underneath and clean ticks and other parasites from the tortoise\u2019s legs, neck, and the skin between the carapace, or upper shell, and the plastron, the lower shell. But occasionally a tortoise will suddenly pull its legs into its shell and drop, smashing the finches flat. Then it stands up and eats the squashed birds. This is not cool, tortoise. Those birds are trying to help you.\n\nGalapagos tortoises lay round, hard-shelled eggs. The female digs a hole in the dirt that\u2019s about a foot deep, or 30 cm, and lays about a dozen eggs in it. She covers the eggs with dirt, tamps it down with her plastron, and leaves. When the babies hatch, they have to dig their way out of the hole. This can take weeks, but fortunately the babies still have yolk sacs attached that keep them from starving.\n\nOne of the Galapagos tortoise species that went extinct recently was the Pinta Island tortoise. The last known individual was called Lonesome George. He was found in 1971 on Pinta Island and taken to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island. Although researchers tried to find more Pinta Island tortoises, even offering $10,000 if someone found a female,