The Hindu : National : Kolkata's Aldabra Giant dies

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Friday, Mar 24, 2006

National

National

Kolkata's Aldabra Giant dies

Marcus Dam

The male tortoise at Alipore zoo is estimated to be about 260 years old

VETERAN: The Aldabra Giant Tortoise. — Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

KOLKATA: Addyaita, a male Aldabra Giant Tortoise estimated to be about 260 years old, died at the Alipore Zoological Garden here on Wednesday. It was considered to be "among the oldest animals in the country."

"The giant shell with a circumference of about 13 feet is being preserved and will be on show at the Natural History Museum that is expected to come up in the zoological garden," Subir K. Chaudhuri, Director, Alipore Zoological Garden, told The Hindu on Thursday. "A post-mortem shows that the tortoise died of hepato-renal failure due to senility leading to ascites," he said.

Addyaita, meaning "peerless," was one of the four tortoises brought to the zoo when it was set up in 1875, from the menagerie at Latbagan in Barrackpore, West Bengal, established by Lord Wellesley in 1800. Three of them died over the last 131 years. The surviving specimen was shifted to a secluded enclosure, to protect it from being disturbed by visitors, till it was moved again to an octagonal enclosure in 1994.

"As the growth rate of these tortoises is very slow and it was a full grown adult at the time of its arrival in the zoo, its age might have been 100 years given its size," he said.

The Aldabra Giant, whose numbers are dwindling, are found in Aldabra and Seychelles Island in the Indian Ocean and differ from the other giant tortoises found in the Galapagos Island in the Pacific because of its small neck place on the carapace. "They have the longest longevity among all vertebrates," Mr. Chaudhuri said.

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