Furthermore, goats brought to Aldabra Islands are destroying much of the vegetation on which giant tortoises feed or seek shade.

File: aldabra. giant. tortoise. arp. jpg | Aldabra Giant Tortoise Geochelone gigantea

The most massive terrestrial chelonians are the giant tortoises of the Galápagos Islands ( Chelonoidis nigra ) and Aldabra Atoll ( Aldabrachelys gigantea ), at up to.

The atoll is home to the world's largest population of giant tortoises, the Aldabra Giant Tortoise ( Dipsochelys dussumieri ), numbering some 100, 000 individuals.

* Addyaita – a giant tortoise of Aldabra.

Other exhibits at the zoo include enclosures for collared peccary, maned wolf, bairds tapir, Indian porcupine, snow leopard, Persian leopard, puma, Syrian brown bear, white-nosed coati, ring-tailed lemur, blue-and-yellow macaw, red panda, little penguin, hamadryas baboon, several species of tamarin, Brazilian agouti, Goodfellow's tree kangaroo, meerkat, quokka, platypus, De Brazza's monkey, Aldabra giant tortoise and bongo.

Most of the islands also had one or more species of giant tortoise before humans arrived ; 19 of 20 giant tortoise species are presently extinct, and only the Aldabra Giant Tortoise still survives.

Reptiles and amphibians at the zoo include Aldabra giant tortoise, Burmese python, carpet python, Desert tortoise, European pond turtle, giant Asian hill tortoise, Gila monster, South American red-footed tortoise, and African bullfrog ( Burrowing Frog ).

The neck of the Aldabra giant tortoise is very long, even for its great size, which helps the animal to exploit tree branches up to a meter from the ground as a food source.

The main population of the Aldabra giant tortoise resides on the islands of the Aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles.

Primarily herbivores, Aldabra giant tortoises will eat grasses, leaves, and woody plant stems.

In captivity, Aldabra giant tortoises are known to enjoy fruits such as apples and bananas as well as compressed vegetable pellets.

Aldabra giant tortoise Aldabrachelys gigantea at Bristol Zoo, England

# REDIRECT Aldabra giant tortoise

# REDIRECT Aldabra giant tortoise

* Aldabra giant tortoise

There is a significant population of giant tortoises, but these come from the island Aldabra.

In 2009, the government of the Seychelles Islands announced its gift of a pair of Aldabra giant tortoises to the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and in appreciation of China's assisting the small insular nation with the expenses of participating in the Expo.

Aldabra tortoise

* Aldabra tortoise

Donna was euthanized on Wednesday, August 1, 2012, because of her failing health This building also houses a nocturnal exhibit, animals you would find in a mangrove swamp, a reptile exhibit including rhinoceros iguana and Aldabra tortoise, tropical birds, and the zoos Indian rhinoceros.

As the largest animal in its environment, the Aldabra tortoise performs a role similar to that of the elephant.

The Aldabra tortoise has two main varieties of shell.

The Sulcata is the third largest species of tortoise in the world after the Galapagos tortoise, and Aldabra Giant Tortoise ; and the largest of the mainland tortoises.

This exhibit has indoor and outdoor viewing and contact yards for the Aldabra Giant Tortoise, Spur-thighed tortoise, and the Rabbits.

** Aldabrachelys gigantea, Aldabra Giant Tortoise, common synonyms Geochelone gigantea, Dipsochelys gigantea

These are the Western Reef Heron Egretta gularis which occurs on the coastline of West Africa ( Egretta gularis gularis ) and from the Red Sea to India ( Egretta gularis schistacea ), and the Dimorphic Egret Egretta dimorpha, found in East Africa, Madagascar, the Comoros and the Aldabra Islands.

The Aldabra Island day gecko, or Aldabra day gecko ( Phelsuma abbotti abbotti ), has been found on the Aldabra Atoll ( Seychelles ).

* Malabar Island ( also called Middle Island ), part of the Aldabra atoll in the Seychelles

Unlike the other two atolls of the group, ( Aldabra and Cosmoledo ), there are no predator-free islets except for a few small sandbanks close to the lagoon entrance.

The granite islands are the world ’ s oldest ocean islands, while the outer islands are mainly very young, though the Aldabra group and St Pierre ( Farquhar Group ) are unusual, raised coral islands that have emerged and submerged several times during their long history, the most recent submergence dating from about 125, 000 years ago.

Other species include the Komodo Dragon, Green Anaconda, Mountain Chicken, Alligator Snapping Turtle, False Gharial, King Cobra, Gila Monster, Frill-necked Lizard, Aldabra Giant Tortoise, Tuatara, Reticulated Python, Tiger Salamander, Three-toed Amphiuma, Pancake Tortoise, and over two dozen species of Pit Vipers from around the world.

This species, Africa's most widespread member of the genus Corvus, occurs from Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically Senegal, Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea down to the Cape of Good Hope and on the large island of Madagascar, the Comoros islands, Aldabra, Zanzibar, Pemba and Fernando Po.

The Aldabra Atoll, along with Des Roches and Farquhar, was part of the British Indian Ocean Territory from 1965 until Seychelles independence in 1976.

Aldabra was designated a World Heritage Site on November 19, 1982, and is administered from Mahé by the Seychelles Island Foundation.

Aldabra is a raised coral atoll more than from Mahé, the principal island of the Seychelles and is closer to the coast of Africa and is northwest of Madagascar and a similar distance northeast from the Comoro Islands.

Two species of bats, Paratriaenops pauliani and Pteropus aldabrensis, are known only from Aldabra.

A Pleistocene fossil from Aldabra, Indian Ocean, was described as Pterodroma kurodai.

In the Indian Ocean, it occurs from northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa to the Red Sea and the Indian subcontinent, including Madagascar, Mauritius, the Comoros, the Aldabra Group, the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, and the Chagos Archipelago.

Despite this, hundreds of non-breeding frigatebirds of both species are to be seen, these being probably from Aldabra.

The isolation of Alphonse acts as a magnet to migratory birds and Seychelles Bird Records Committee has recorded more bird species here than anywhere south of the granitics apart from Aldabra, including the only record of Sociable Lapwing for the entire southern hemisphere.

The Aldabra Group are part of the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, lying in the southwest of the island nation, 1000 kilometres from the capital, Victoria, on Mahé Island.

The Aldabra, Desroches and Farquhar Islands were returned to the Seychelles and the United States cancelled its 60-year lease of the islands from Britain.

In the late 1970s a conservation project was started to move tortoises from Aldabra to Curieuse.