Endangered
Chelonoidis microphyes
Chelonoidis microphyes
Chelonoidis niger microphyes, also known as the Volcán Darwin giant tortoise, Darwin Volcano giant tortoise or Tagus Cove giant tortoise, is a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise endemic to the Galápagos archipelago in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean.
The tortoise
Male tortoises grow to about 135 cm and females to about 86 cm in length, with domed carapaces. The specific epithet microphyes (“small when full-grown”) is based on the mistaken assumption by describer Albert Günther that the holotype specimen (with a carapace length of only 57.2 cm) was of an adult male.
Range and habitat
The tortoise's range is limited to an area of about 67 km2 on the south-western slope of Darwin Volcano on the northern part of Isabela Island. There it inhabits deciduous and evergreen forests as well as dry grassland. Chelonoidis niger microphyes, also known as the Volcán Darwin giant tortoise, Darwin Volcano giant tortoise or Tagus Cove giant tortoise, is a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise endemic to the Galápagos archipelago in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Adults migrate seasonally from the caldera of the volcano to its lower slopes to graze on vegetation after wet season rains. The tortoises feed on grass, leaves, berries and lichens in the wet season, and mainly cacti in the dry season.
In crisis
The tortoise population is estimated to comprise some 500–1,000 mature individuals, a decline of 94% since 1840, and the subspecies is considered to be Endangered. Ongoing threats include predation of eggs and hatchlings and competition for food by introduced animals, among them feral dogs, feral cats, rats, mice, domestic pigs and goats, as well as habitat degradation and volcanic eruptions.
Chelonoidis microphyes is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Chelonoidis microphyes, Wikidata item Q12745312. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
