Critically Endangered
Spider tortoise
Pyxis arachnoides
The spider tortoise is a tortoise in the family Testudinidae that is endemic to Madagascar and is one of only two species in the genus Pyxis.
The tortoise
Spider tortoise is a tortoise in the family Testudinidae — Pyxis arachnoides.
Range and habitat
The remaining tortoises are found only in south western Madagascar, where they inhabit the spiny vegetation of the sandy coastal areas. The spider tortoise is a tortoise in the family Testudinidae that is endemic to Madagascar and is one of only two species in the genus Pyxis.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Here they feed on young leaves, insect larvae, and even the droppings of larger animals. When the wet season arrives, the dormancy period ends and the tortoises begin to mate.
Females only lay one egg when they reproduce, and the egg is incubated for about 220–250 days.
In crisis
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Spider tortoise is Critically 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 Spider tortoise, Wikidata item Q2376451. 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.
