Sulcata Tortoise

Meet Jasper!

Jasper is a sulcata tortoise, the third largest species of tortoise in the world! In the wild, sulcata tortoises live along the edge of the Sahara desert in Africa and manage the hot, dry environment by being excellent burrowers - they will dig deep, long tunnels where they can spend the hottest parts of the day in cool comfort.

These giant tortoises can weigh more than 200 pounds and can live for more than 70 years. Once they are adults, it is easy to tell the males and females apart, as the males have extremely large gular scutes. What is a gular scute? Great question! The gular scutes are the pieces of the tortoise’s plastron (bottom half of their shell) right underneath their head and neck. The extra long gular scutes, sometimes called a gular horn, allow the males to spar with each other, and even flip each other over! While female sulcata tortoises (and all turtles and tortoises) do have gular scutes, they are not enlarged like they are in the males.

Jasper can be seen grazing and taking mud baths in one of our giant tortoise exhibits, right next door to Aly, the Aldabra tortoise!