Jumbo and Nigrita are grandparents!
A baby Galápagos tortoise hatched at the Tropiquarium in Servion (VD) on 06 August 2021.
Its parents are the first "children" of Jumbo and Nigrita from Zurich Zoo. They were born in 1991/92 and have been at home in Servion since 2004. Once the tortoises reached sexual maturity, their love affair quickly bore fruit: the eggs were placed in an incubator to ensure the necessary temperature stability. To the joy of the Tropiquarium, a little tortoise hatched, weighing exactly 66 grams at birth.
The first" grandchild" of the giant tortoises of Zurich © Tropiquarium Servion
The tennis ball-sized eggs of the giant tortoises © Tropiquarium Servion
To enable healthy breeding of Galápagos giant tortoises in the long term, the animals kept in European zoos are entered into the studbook of the European Conservation Breeding Programme (EEP). This allows the genetic lines of the species to be traced in captivity. The studbook of the Galapagos giant tortoises is maintained by Zurich Zoo.
While these tortoises can live to a very old age, they are threatened with extinction and are on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
