Leopard… leopard tortoise

On this beautiful afternoon, I was hosting six guests staying with us for two nights and this was their first time to Singita Sabi Sands.

We had some delicious snacks and drinks before we headed out and our plan was to try and track a leopard which was seen that morning before their arrival. In the process of the leopard tracking, we had an amazing discovery where our tracker Howard spotted three gorgeous leopard tortoises, two males and a female. The smaller males were obviously competing for mating rights, with the female trying to escape from them. We spent some time watching these interesting animals, my guests enthralled with their eager antics.

The leopard tortoise is one of the most fascinating animals and the most common tortoise in the Lowveld. It is also the largest, reaching a maximum of 40 kg, with an average 10 to 20 kg (22 - 44 lbs). Males are slower growers and only reach sexual maturity at between 10 and 15 years old.

They are the only tortoise known to be able to swim.

The shell of a tortoise is divided into two halves, the top and the bottom, the upper part is called the carapace while the lower part is known as the plastron. Males have longer tails than females and a concave plastron that allows them to mount females during mating.

The leopard tortoise is called such because it has similar coloration to its namesake - but unlike the feline leopards they do not have teeth nor do they eat meat!

A leopard tortoise can be recognized by the absence of a small tile that usually fits between the two scutes in the front of the carapace on a tortoise and this small tile is called a nuchal scute.

The shell of a tortoise is its transportable protective body armour. It is formed from a modified fused ribcage and skeleton and when the tortoise is threatened it draws its head directly back into its shell by means of a specialized, flexible neck and then seals off the opening by pulling in its scaly legs.

Tortoise are eaten by numerous predators despite their protective shells - hyenas, leopards and lions break the shells with their strong jaws, and southern ground hornbills feast on individuals, especially those that are caught in veld fires.

Leopard tortoises have a way of storing water in what is known as a bursa sac. This stored water is needed during times of drought or to moisten soil to more easily dig a pit in which to lay eggs.

The sex of the hatchlings is determined by the temperature at which they incubate in their chamber under loose sand and decomposed vegetation. What is especially fascinating, especially in the context of climate change, is that those eggs subjected to temperatures between 26 - 30 °C become males while those exposed to 31 - 34 °C heat develop to hatch as females.