An Essay on the Pinta Island Tortoise
An Essay on the Pinta Island Tortoise
Abstract
This essay will take you through the facts about the Pinta Island Tortoise. It will include how they became extinct, what people did to try and stop their extinction, and when they became extinct. It will include their natural habitat, the food they ate, and what they looked like. This essay will take you through the day before the Pinta Island Tortoise became extinct, and how they lived their everyday lives. It will explain in detail the research done on the very last Pinta Island Tortoise known to man. This essay will overall explain to you everything about the Pinta Island Tortoise and its extinction.
The Pinta Island Tortoise and Its Recent Extinction Think of an island covered in over 100,000 tortoises the size of a grown man in the fetal position; you would be imagining the Galapagos Islands before the 1600’s. The tortoises you were visualizing were the Pinta Island Tortoises. Theses tortoises used to run the islands in great number and in peace. Then around the 1600’s, humans began to change the tortoises’ lives forever. The Pinta Island Tortoise stood at about four and a half feet when legs and neck were fully extended. They were grayish black, with a hard shell covering on their back. The bony portion of the shell is covered with plates that are derivatives of skin and offer additional strength and protection. The tortoises have beak-like mouths, to help them snap off branches to eat. They have extremely long necks to reach taller branches. The Pinta Island Tortoise had scaly skin and thick toenails. They enjoyed mud bathing and wading into shallow pools of water.
Pinta Island Tortoises were active for much of the day, spending most of it feeding. They were vegetarian, eating a great variety of plants in large quantities. Their digestive system was rather inefficient as much of the food passed through their body without being digested. At night they sleep, often in snug depressions in the
Abstract
This essay will take you through the facts about the Pinta Island Tortoise. It will include how they became extinct, what people did to try and stop their extinction, and when they became extinct. It will include their natural habitat, the food they ate, and what they looked like. This essay will take you through the day before the Pinta Island Tortoise became extinct, and how they lived their everyday lives. It will explain in detail the research done on the very last Pinta Island Tortoise known to man. This essay will overall explain to you everything about the Pinta Island Tortoise and its extinction.
The Pinta Island Tortoise and Its Recent Extinction Think of an island covered in over 100,000 tortoises the size of a grown man in the fetal position; you would be imagining the Galapagos Islands before the 1600’s. The tortoises you were visualizing were the Pinta Island Tortoises. Theses tortoises used to run the islands in great number and in peace. Then around the 1600’s, humans began to change the tortoises’ lives forever. The Pinta Island Tortoise stood at about four and a half feet when legs and neck were fully extended. They were grayish black, with a hard shell covering on their back. The bony portion of the shell is covered with plates that are derivatives of skin and offer additional strength and protection. The tortoises have beak-like mouths, to help them snap off branches to eat. They have extremely long necks to reach taller branches. The Pinta Island Tortoise had scaly skin and thick toenails. They enjoyed mud bathing and wading into shallow pools of water.
Pinta Island Tortoises were active for much of the day, spending most of it feeding. They were vegetarian, eating a great variety of plants in large quantities. Their digestive system was rather inefficient as much of the food passed through their body without being digested. At night they sleep, often in snug depressions in the