Ploughshare tortoise  (Astrochelys yniphora)

Biology

This species feeds on grasses and a wide range of other plants (2). Males compete for access to females; during these wrestling matches, males try to flip their opponent over using the plough-like projection of the lower shell below the neck (9). Each breeding season, females lay up to seven clutches of between two and six eggs (6). She lays the eggs in a pit that she digs with her hind legs, covers them with soil and abandons them (2). Young ploughshare tortoises are around the size of a ping pong ball when they hatch at the beginning of the wet season (5) (6). They are fully independent immediately after emerging, but it takes as long as 20 years for them to reach sexual maturity (6).

left