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Geochelone Nigra is the scientific name.

The Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/(giant Galapagos tortoise) was first documented by Charles Darwin last century when he went on his trip to the Galapagos Islands.

The Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/is the biggest species of http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/in the modern world with some Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/reaching more than 4ft long! The Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/is also one the longest living species of http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/with a number of Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/getting older than 150!

The Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/, like most other species of http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/, is a http://wiki.answers.com/glossary.php#Herbivorespending its time grazing on grass and low trees. Today only 10 out of the 12 Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/species still exist on the http://wiki.answers.com/search.php?search=pacificislands due to the introduction of http://wiki.answers.com/animals/goat/a few hundred years ago.

The domestic http://wiki.answers.com/animals/goat/, stripped the islands of their good foliage meaning that the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/found it hard to find food. Today the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/is most well known for their long necks, which make them look slightly like a dinosaur!

The Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/is a very quiet, peaceful and lazy http://wiki.answers.com/glossary.php#Animalwith the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/waking up early in the morning to bask in the sun until the enormous body of the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/has warmed up. The Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/then spends the rest of its day foraging for food before retiring back to bed in the early hours of the evening where the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/spends the night in shrub land or submerged in water.

The Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/is a very slow moving http://wiki.answers.com/glossary.php#Animalwith the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/having a top speed of less than 1 mile an hour! During the mating season however, the male Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/have been known to move at a surprising speed with marked individual Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/having been known to travel 13 km in just two days, a phenomenal feet for the sheer size of the Galapagos tortoise.

Like other species of http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/, the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/is able to pull its head and legs into its shell to protect itself when the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/feels under threat from potential http://wiki.answers.com/glossary.php#Predator. The scaly skin on the exposed legs and head of the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/also acts a layer of armor to protect the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/from incurring any damage when the Galapagos http://wiki.answers.com/animals/tortoise/is moving around.

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