Reptiles
Leopard Tortoise
Stigmochelys pardalis · also called mountain tortoise
The leopard tortoise is the big tortoise of the African plains — a steeply domed animal in a shell patterned like a leopard’s coat, grazing its way across the savanna alongside the antelope and zebra. It breaks two tortoise rules: it can swim, and it never digs a burrow.
Overview
Stigmochelys pardalis ranges across the savanna and grassland of eastern and southern Africa. It is the fourth-largest tortoise species, usually 40 cm and 13–18 kg but sometimes far larger. Juveniles wear a vivid yellow-and-black shell; the markings fade to plain brown in old age. It grazes grass and hunts calcium by gnawing bones and dung.
Two exceptions
Its tall, air-filled domed shell lets it float and swim across rivers, where most tortoises sink. And it is the only African tortoise that does not dig its own burrow — it shelters in brush or in holes abandoned by aardvarks and jackals.
Slow to hatch
The female lays several clutches a year, and the buried eggs take 8 to 15 months to hatch, one of the longest incubations of any tortoise. Because it cannot burrow or run, grass fire is a major cause of death.
Status
Least Concern and widespread, though collected locally for the pet trade, meat, and shell.
Leopard Tortoise: common questions
How big does a leopard tortoise get?
Most leopard tortoises reach about 40 centimetres in shell length and 13 to 18 kilograms as adults, but the species is variable and the largest individuals, particularly from the far north and far south of the range, can approach 70 centimetres and weigh more than 40 kilograms. That makes it the fourth-largest tortoise species in the world, behind only the Galapagos and Aldabra giant tortoises and the African spurred tortoise. A hatchling is only about 4 to 5 centimetres, so a leopard tortoise increases its length roughly tenfold and its weight many hundredfold over a lifetime that can span 50 to 100 years.
Can a leopard tortoise really swim?
Yes, which is unusual for a tortoise. Most tortoises have a relatively flat or lightly domed shell and dense bones and will sink and drown in deep water. The leopard tortoise has a tall, steeply domed shell that encloses a large volume of air, giving it enough buoyancy to float, and it will deliberately enter water and paddle across rivers and dams. It can also raise its head and pump its throat to breathe while the rest of it is submerged. This does not mean it is aquatic; it is a dry-country grazer that simply happens to be able to cross water when it needs to.
Do leopard tortoises make good pets?
They are popular in the pet trade and can do well with the right care, but they are a serious commitment. They grow large, need a big outdoor enclosure with sun, shade, and a warm dry climate or a heated shelter in cooler regions, and require a very high-fibre, low-protein, calcium-rich diet of grasses and weeds; the wrong diet causes lumpy, pyramided shell growth and kidney and bladder stones. They can live longer than their owner. Buyers should insist on a captive-bred animal, since wild leopard tortoises are still collected in parts of Africa, and should be aware the species is listed on CITES Appendix II.
Why does the leopard pattern fade as the tortoise ages?
The bold yellow-and-black blotching of a young leopard tortoise is thought to help break up its outline among the dappled light and dry grass of the savanna, camouflage that matters most when the animal is small and eaten by everything from mongooses to eagles to warthogs. As the tortoise grows past the size where most predators can crack it, the pattern becomes less important, and the shell scutes gradually darken and dull with wear, sun, and the deposition of pigment, so that a very old leopard tortoise is often a uniform horn-brown or grey with only a ghost of the juvenile markings.