The Tenerife giant tortoise (''Centrochelys burchardi'') is an extinct species of

cryptodire The Cryptodira ('' el, hidden neck'') are a suborder of Testudines that includes most living tortoises and turtles. Cryptodira differ from Pleurodira (side-necked turtles) in that they lower their necks and pull the heads straight back into the ...

turtle in the family Testudinidae endemic to the island of

Tenerife Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...

, in the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

.Fauna subfósil de las Islas Canarias
/ref>La Paleontología de vertebrados en Canarias
/ref>

Characteristics

It was a large tortoise, similar to those currently found in some oceanic islands like the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean and

Aldabra Aldabra is the world's second-largest coral atoll, lying south-east of the continent of Africa. It is part of the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean that are part of the Outer Islands of the Seychelles, with a distance of 1,120 k ...

and the

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...

in the Indian Ocean. The earliest remains of ''C. burchardi'' found on Tenerife date from the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

epoch. This tortoise is thought to have inhabited the island until the Upper

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

, when volcanic activity at that time exterminated them long before humans arrived during the

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

.El legado paleontológico de nuestras islas
/ref> Most fossils are of bones and shells, as well as a nest of fossilized eggs found in volcanic soil in the south of Tenerife, in the present municipality of

Adeje Adeje is a town and municipality in the southwestern part of the island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, and part of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. The town Adeje is located 4 km from the coast, 8 km north of the resort town ...

. This species of giant tortoise was described in 1926 by

Ernst Ahl Christoph Gustav Ernst Ahl (1 September 1898 – 14 February 1945) was a German Zoology, zoologist, born in Berlin. He was the director of the department of ichthyology and herpetology in the Museum für Naturkunde. He was also the editor in chi ...

, the first time a giant tortoise endemic to the Canary Islands described. Another extinct tortoise species, '' C. vulcanica'', is known from the island of

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa which is part of Spain. the island had a population of that co ...

. ''C. burchardi'' had a larger shell, with a length of approximately 65 to 94 cm, while ''C. vulcanica'' shell had a 61 cm. It is believed that the ancestors of these tortoises could reach the eastern islands of the Canary Islands from the African continent and progressively moved to westward through that archipelago as their size also increased and its appearance evolved to adapt to the conditions of the archipelago. Fossilized tortoise eggs have been found in the islands of

Lanzarote Lanzarote (, , ) is a Spanish island, the easternmost of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately off the north coast of Africa and from the Iberian Peninsula. Covering , Lanzarote is the fourth-largest of the i ...

and

Fuerteventura Fuerteventura () is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the North Africa region, and politically part of Spain. It is located away from the northwestern coast of Africa. The island was declared a biosphere reserve by UNES ...

; however, these eggs have not yet been properly described or named. The species of Fuerteventura has been linked to ''C. burchardi'', but this identification is uncertain, and has been challenged.The Recently Extinct Plants and Animals Database Extinct Reptiles: Geochelone
/ref>

References

{{Testudinidae Miocene turtles Geochelone Extinct reptiles Reptiles of the Canary Islands Pliocene turtles Pleistocene turtles Miocene species first appearances Pleistocene species extinctions Fossil taxa described in 1926

Characteristics

See also

References