A giant tortoise stalked, killed and gobbled up a bird — and for the first time ever, the event was documented
Tortoises were long thought to have been herbivores until researchers released a video they took a year ago of a giant tortoise killing and eating a bird, according to a report from Smithsonian Magazine. (Woman Gets Bitten By An Iguana While Doing Yoga In Laugh-Out-Loud Funny Video)
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT – Eyewitness video captures the moment a giant tortoise attacked and ate a baby bird, a lesser noddy tern chick – in what reports suggest may be the first documented example of the species, thought to be an herbivore, hunting in the wild pic.twitter.com/qLaP8D9Bxs
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 25, 2021
Study author and ecologist Justin Gerlach and co-author Anna Zora were observing tortoises on Frégate Island in July of 2020 when they discovered the carnivorous reptile. It was then that Zora started taking video as the bird put up a fight before the tortoise crushes the bird’s head with its mouth and eats it.
“It’s totally surprising and rather horrifying,” Gerlach told The New York Times‘ Jason Bittel. “The tortoise is deliberately pursuing this bird and kills it, and then eats it. So yeah, it’s hunting.”
Before researchers saw it with their own eyes, they believed that giant tortoises were herbivores. The large reptiles generally eat grass and woody plants — although they occasionally eat eggshells or bone fragments — and they can grow to weigh some 500 lbs and live for up to 150 years.