Reptilia · Testudines
Chelonoidis nigerQuoy & Gaimard, 1824
Cerro Azul Giant Tortoise
Identification not confirmed. One observer recorded this animal as this species and no one has since agreed, so the photograph may show a different animal.
Photograph by Annika Lindqvist, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, plant-eating tortoise from the Neotropic region, reaching 187 cm across the shell.
Also called Abingdon Island Giant Tortoise, Alcedo Volcano Giant Tortoise, Charles Island Giant Tortoise.
Reptilia › Testudines › Testudinidae › Chelonoidis
- Grows to
- 1200mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Herbivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 177years
Longer than 98% of all tortoises anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 99.8 to 1,200 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
28 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Conservation status
- Extinct
- Population trend
- Unspecified
The animal itself
- Colour on the back
- Brown, Yellow
- Pattern on the back
- Uniform
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
- Longest recorded life
- 177years
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 1200mm3 ft 11 in
- Shell length, front to back · greatest recorded
- 1870mm6 ft 2 in
- Largest juvenile · shell length
- 60mm2.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 417,000g919 lb
- Body mass at hatching
- 119.8g4.2 oz
total length, tail included — Colston, Kulkarni, Jetz, and Pyron, 2020, BMC Evol. Biol., 20:81
straight carapace length, measured in a line rather than over the curve
largely converted from length by allometry in the source
How it lives
- Diet
- Herbivorous
- How it hunts
- Active foraging
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Shrubland
- Region
- Neotropic
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 227m
Plants
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Temperature
- Average clutch
- 10eggs
- Largest clutch recorded
- 16eggs
Naming and history
- Subspecies
- Chelonoidis niger abingdonii (GÜNTHER 1877) Chelonoidis niger becki (ROTHSCHILD 1901) Chelonoidis niger chathamensis (VAN DENBURGH 1907) Chelonoidis niger darwini (VAN DENBURGH 1907) Chelonoidis niger donfaustoi POULAKAKIS et al. 2015 Chelonoidis niger duncanensis (PRITCHARD 1996) Chelonoidis niger guntheri (BAUR 1889) Chelonoidis niger hoodensis (VAN DENBURGH 1907) Chelonoidis niger microphyes (GÜNTHER 1875) Chelonoidis niger niger (QUOY & GAIMARD 1824) Chelonoidis niger phantasticus (VAN DENBURGH 1907) Chelonoidis niger porteri (ROTHSCHILD 1903) Chelonoidis niger vandenburghi (DESOLA 1930) Chelonoidis niger vicina (GÜNTHER 1874)
- Described by
- Quoy & Gaimard
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1824
Keeping one
Cerro Azul Giant Tortoise is assessed as Extinct on the IUCN Red List. No living animal is known. Anything below describes what was recorded of the species while it existed, and it is here because a reference that quietly drops a species it has lost is a worse record than one that keeps it.
No enclosure size, temperature or feeding figure is given for this species. What is recorded about the animal stays on this page above; advice on keeping one does not, because there is none to keep.
Feeding
Prey size does not apply. A herbivore's diet is judged on fibre, on the ratio of calcium to phosphorus, and on avoiding plants high in oxalates.
The animal does not take prey items. This is established practice, not a measurement.
19434kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 417,000 g, the heaviest recorded for Cerro Azul Giant Tortoise — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Still living
- — Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Smallest clutch recorded
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Limbs
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Suborder
- — Infraorder
- — Type locality
- — Active in
- — Mainland or island
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Testudinidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Chelonoidis niger. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chelonoidis-niger
@misc{chelonoidis_niger_2026,
title = {Chelonoidis niger},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chelonoidis-niger}
}Sources
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.