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It’s perfectly understandable, in this day and age, when starting a family is put off for a year or two.  After all, parenthood is best coped with when planned. However, when the “decision” to become a first time mom is put off by decades, then friends and family stop asking when it’s ever going to happen.  This must surely have been the case with the an endangered giant tortoise who had become a mother at an estimated 100 years old.

Mommy – yes that is her name – is, to be completely accurate, a Western Santa Cruz Galápagos tortoise.  She was taken from her island at some point in the past (no one is sure when) but she has called Philadelphia Zoo home for 90 odd years.  Arriving in 1932, she is believed to be around a century old and even though her species stay capable of producing young way into their long, long lives, Mommy has never before produced any viable offspring.  

This is not only a first for Mommy (whose name has finally become appropriate) but also for Philadelphia Zoo.  There are fewer than 50 held at zoos in the US and the species is critically endangered on their home island in the Galápagos.  This highlights the roles that zoos play in the conservation of species, despite reservations many of us have about animals being kept in captivity.  It is the first time in the zoo’s 150 year history that Galápagos tortoises have hatched there.

Back home, human activity (sailors used to kill them for food) and the introduction of predator species like cats and rats (which will happily munch tortoise eggs for lunch) has meant that the Western Santa Cruz Galápagos tortoise is on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.  Males can grow up to 6 feet in length and weigh in at almost 600 pounds – but it takes a long time to get to that size – making them the largest tortoise species on this, our ark in space.

When Mommy laid her latest batch (three previous batches had produced no viable eggs), thanks to some previous assistance from male Abrazzo who joined her four years ago, zoo keepers took the immediate decision to incubate eight of the eggs at one temperature and the others at another, lower temperature.  This is because the gender of this species is determined by the temperature at which the eggs incubate.  The first to hatch have been the females, (which are incubated at the warmer temperature).  The males have yet to make an appearance but fingers are collectively crossed that they will shortly join their sisters in the world.

If they do, they have an incredibly long life ahead of them.  The oldest recorded Galápagos tortoise was recorded as hitting 171.  As they can produce way into old age, researchers hope that Mommy’s brood will be a game changer for the Western Santa Cruz Galápagos tortoise.

Mommy is genetically valuable – as her DNA follows a different family line to many other Western Santa Cruz Galápagos tortoises both at home and in US zoos (which keep a total of 46).  The eight sisters represent quite a leap in the species’ population and a hope for future breeding programmes that all is not lost for this remarkable animal.  It also means that the chances of retaining genetic diversity is raised. These baby tortoises represent a new genetic lineage which could well be the proverbial icing on the cake in ensuring that the Western Santa Cruz Galápagos tortoise is around for many centuries to come.

The hatchlings are currently being cared for behind the scenes in the Reptile and Amphibian House and are scheduled to make their public debut on April 23 — marking the 93rd anniversary of Mommy’s arrival at the zoo.

First Image Credit