by Jane Sullivan • photos by Shirley Ramaley “Hey, look at this guy. He looks just like E.T.” I squatted down to look in awe at a creature that, before this, I had only read about: the Galapagos tortoise. They are the largest known living tortoises in the world. “You’re right on that,” our guide answered. “E.T. was modeled after the Galapagos tortoise.” With our guide, we wandered through the upland meadows of the island of Santa Cruz to view these gentle giants up close. Santa Cruz is one of the Galapagos Islands, which lie in the Pacific Ocean 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Spanish sailors, who discovered the islands in 1535, named them after the many tortoises which lived there. Galápago is a Spanish word for turtle.
Over 100,000 giant tortoises existed on the Galapagos Islands when the Spanish sailors first came there. By 1947, the population had dwindled to about 14,000. Today the Charles Darwin Research Center helps protect them. Tortoise eggs are brought to the Center, where they are hatched and raised. When the young tortoises are large enough to survive on their own, they are returned to the wild to live. A Galapagos tortoise can live to the ripe old age of 200 years.
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