TORONTO -- After a dramatic incubation period and a lot of hoping on the part of zookeepers, the Toronto Zoo鈥檚 first baby Madagascar spider tortoise has come out of its shell -- and it鈥檚 doing just fine.
In Wednesday, the zoo announced staff members were 鈥渢hrilled鈥� to report the hatching. The tortoise has been listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, according to the release.
The zoo first started working with the species in 2007, and this is its first successful hatching of a Madagascar spider tortoise.
These delicate tortoises, which are the smallest of four tortoises found only on the island of Madagascar, are disappearing from the wild due to poachers.
鈥淓very year thousands of endangered Madagascar tortoises are illegally collected by poachers,鈥� said Dr. Andrew Lentini, Senior Director of Wildlife and Science at the Toronto Zoo, in the press release.
He added that the tortoises often end up on 鈥渢he butcher block鈥� or sold as pets.
They may be 鈥渟pider鈥� tortoises, but Madagascar spider tortoises don鈥檛 get around on eight legs. The name refers to the web-like patterns of yellow and black lines that radiate across its shell.
Photos posted by the Toronto Zoo show the baby tortoise pinched carefully between just two fingers. It is currently smaller than a golf ball, but even a fully grown spider tortoise is generally no longer than around 18 centimetres, according to the
The path to the Toronto Zoo baby鈥檚 debut was not easy. The egg was laid all the way back in the fall, on Oct. 4, and then went through a 鈥渄iapause,鈥� which is a period of suspended animation, before it continued developing to prepare for hatching.
After zookeepers discovered the egg, they set it up in a 鈥渟pecialized incubation media (a mix of sterile vermiculite and water which maintains moisture availability to the embryo and allows for good gas exchange),鈥� according to the press release. The egg was then incubated at specific temperatures and monitored carefully for months.
鈥淭he Toronto Zoo is proud to support efforts to save and protect turtles and tortoises around the world as a member of the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA),鈥� said Lentini.
Dolf DeJong, Toronto Zoo CEO, said in the press release that this is 鈥渁 great example of the critical work done at the Toronto Zoo with our world class wildlife care team.鈥�
