So the tortoises are now having their ... 54 young ploughshare tortoises. They live in Madagascar, an island in the western Indian Ocean, 425 km off the east coast of Southern Africa. It is estimated there only 400 adult Ploughshare tortoise left in the wild and while there might still be as many as 6.3 million radiated tortoises, the population is declining rapidly, representing a 47 per cent decrease in population size from the 12 million estimated only 11 years earlier.

It is a very long-lived species, with recorded lifespans of at least 188 years. The ploughshare tortoise is one of the rarest tortoises on the planet: with fewer than 50 adults thought to be left in the wild, each one is worth as much as $50,000 on the global exotic pet market. There may only be 500 left in the world.

Ploughshare tortoises are highly prized for ... only be fewer than 500 left. Main Text Introduction. As part of this research, field surveys conducted between 2006 and 2015 in Madagascar showed that the island’s native ploughshare population had halved during this period – leaving just 500 adult tortoises left in the wild by 2014-15.

... species info on the left, room for notes on the right. Turtles and Tortoises of Madagascar Madagascar is home to 13 turtle and tortoise species. The radiated tortoise (Astrochelys radiata) is a species in the family Testudinidae. It is a desert-dwelling tortoise whose range extends along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert from Senegal and Mauritania, east through Mali, Chad, the Sudan and Ethiopia to Eritrea. However, many of these species are critically endangered with extinction because of illegal collection and habitat loss.

Turtles and tortoises are among the most remarkable organisms on Earth.

Species info will be truncated to … The African Spurred Tortoise (Geochelone sulcata) is also known as the ‘Grooved Tortoise’, the ‘Spur Tortoise’ and the ‘African Spur Thigh Tortoise’.

Although this species is native to and most abundant in southern Madagascar, it can also be found in the rest of this island, and has been introduced to the islands of Réunion and Mauritius. These Ploughshare tortoises are very rare.