Today I had lots of time to take pictures of these beautiful animals, the Galapagos giant tortoises. At the installations of the Galapagos National Park Service and Charles Darwin Research Station, I experienced a sense of stillness as I admired these animals feeding on a multitude of leaves that the park keepers had just placed on their feeding table. It was still early in the morning and apparently I was the first to enter this corral where 6 large adult males are kept.
The leading herpetologist, Cruz Marquez, came in to monitor the tortoises, and I had the chance to talk to him a bit about all sorts of things related to the tortoises. Something that made me curious was the different type of plants that the tortoises are fed at the research station. Mr. Marquez mentioned that according to research, they had concluded that the plant they should feed them the most is the flame tree (Erythrina velutina). Apparently this plant does not contain high levels of alkaloids that could affect them in the long run. On the other hand he mentioned that of course in the wild they do not make any distinction and they eat any plant they come across. The reason this plant is fed to them at the station is simply due to the high nutritious levels of the plant. "Yummy, yummy". This is what this tortoise seems to be thinking as it chews the leaves of flame trees. Bon Appetit!
