You’ll Laugh When You See This 106-Year-Old Tortoise Get Pampered and Munch on a Cucumber

An enormous tortoise is captured on video, literally eating out of the hand of another human. Jay Brewer is a reptile enthusiast with over five million YouTube followers. His desire is to show the beauty of these reptiles and that there is nothing to fear (most of the time.) 

Brewer will show videos of various reptiles, such as crocodiles, monkeys, snakes, and lizards. The most incredible animal he loves to show off is the Galapagos Tortoise. As seen from the video captured below, this tortoise is nothing short of gigantic. 

Brewer is giving this tortoise a bath at the start of this video. Using a bristle brush, he scrubs the tortoise’s scales and shell to ensure every part is clean. The tortoise lifts his head up high, stretching his neck as far as possible. With his eyes closed, it is clear that this is one of this tortoise’s favorite parts of the day.

Brewer tells his audience that this tortoise is 106 years old during the bath! This incredible age is 46 years shy of being the oldest tortoise ever to live.  We will cover that in the next section.

After his bath, this tortoise enjoyed an extremely large cucumber that was nothing more than a few bites to him. Brewer lifts the large cucumber up high to show the lengths this tortoise can reach. 

The tortoise bites off half of this large cucumber in one large bite, and a large crunch is heard. Mere seconds later, he is ready for another bite and enjoys the rest as quickly as possible. 

What is the Lifespan of a Galapagos Tortoise? 

These large Galapagos Tortoises can weigh up to 575 pounds and truly take on the title of the world’s biggest tortoise species. The largest Galapagos Tortoise ever recorded was the tortoise Goliath which weighed 919 pounds! Even though he was large, he only lived 42 years. Which is well under what a Galapagos Tortoise’s lifespan typically is. 

These tortoises can live anywhere from 100 – 150 years. The oldest Galapagos Tortoise ever recorded lived to be 152 years old. 

What are Some Unique Characteristics of Galapagos Tortoises?

1. Shells – when we think of a tortoise, two things usually come to mind. How big they are and how hard their shell is. However, this tortoise’s shell is actually more like a honeycomb and weighs much less than it looks. 

2. Swimming – while they are not the best swimmers, Galapagos Tortoises can keep afloat for a short period without fear of drowning. 
3. Sleeping – these tortoises live up to the childhood story of the tortoise and the hare, where the tortoise was so slow the hare took a nap. These Galapagos Tortoises can reach up to 0.3 miles per hour. Due to the amount of effort, it takes them to not only do anything but go anywhere, these tortoises will usually sleep up to 16 hours a day.

The photo featured at the top of this post is © Fotos593/Shutterstock.com