We swerve for moving rocks – Leopard Tortoise @ Sibaya – Sodwana Bay

So as you should know by now, if you have followed our blogs so far, we are extreme animal and nature lovers.

So we swerve for “living rocks” who wanna cross the road. Especially when they rushing to find shelter for the night.

What do we mean by swerving “living rocks”? Of course we mean the tortoise… As far as research goes I guess the most common tortoise around here is the Leopard tortoise.

So the other day when we were coming home from Sodwana Bay. We saw this little rock racing towards the road, we luckily saw it in the nick of time, just as it stepped into the road.

Leopard tortoises are common pets in Africa, they can handle immense heat and chilling temperatures which makes them quiet hardy and easy to keep, just don’t let them drown in your pool!

They can grow up to – 40cm (16in) and weigh up to 13kg(29lb) making them the fourth largest tortoise in the world. Although oddly enough The leopard tortoise will grow bigger the further north or south they are living in. At the far sides of the northern of Southern parts of their habitat areas they can grow up 70 cm (28in) and weigh up to 40kg (88lb).

Juveniles and young adults are typically vividly  marked with yellow and black markings, often resembling leopard spots. But as they grow older they may start to loose their color and start to change color to brown, I guess this could be due to the sun.

They typically love the savanna regions and are complete herbivores. They will eat just about any fruit, vegetable or plant provided to them in their environment. Mating maturity can start from 12-15 years of age.

But thinking about it they do live between 50-100 years in the wild, so it makes sense that it takes so long for them to mature.