How Long Do Tortoises Live?

How long tortoises live

Tortoises are believed to be the longest lived of all animals, the Smithsonian's National Zoo says, though it is hard to prove. Some figures from the people who study and care for them:

• The desert tortoise, the one that lives wild in California: roughly 50 to 80 years, the US Fish and Wildlife Service says
• The leopard tortoise: 50 years and more in human care, per the Merck Veterinary Manual
• The Aldabra giant tortoise: up to about 150 years
• The Galápagos tortoise: a median of about 49 years in zoos, though some live far longer. Speed, a Galápagos tortoise at the San Diego Zoo, lived to an estimated 150

The oldest tortoise alive

Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise on the island of St Helena, is the oldest known living land animal. Guinness World Records believes he hatched around 1832, which makes him at least 194 in 2026. His age is an estimate: he was already fully grown when he arrived on the island in 1882. He also holds the record for the oldest tortoise or turtle on record, past the 188 years of a radiated tortoise from Madagascar.

How long Sulcata tortoises live

Zoos give different figures. The San Diego Zoo says 80 to 100 years, the Oakland Zoo 55 to 60 in the wild and 80 in human care, the Dublin Zoo upwards of 70, and the Oregon Zoo up to 150. A fair plain answer is 70 years or more.

Sulcata tortoise facts

• Where they come from: the Sahel, the dry grassland, scrub and savanna along the southern edge of the Sahara, from Senegal and Mauritania east to Ethiopia and Eritrea
• Size: the largest mainland tortoise and the third largest tortoise in the world, after the island giants of Aldabra and the Galápagos. Adults easily reach 30 inches long and well over 100 pounds, and big males can reach about 200
• Growth: from a hatchling about 2 inches long to an adult well over 100 pounds
• The spurs: two or three cone shaped spurs on each back thigh give them the name African spurred tortoise. What the spurs are for is still not fully understood
• Burrows: most are about 30 inches deep, but some dig tunnels 10 feet or more underground, where it can be in the 70s while the air above passes 120°F
• Diet: grasses, flowers, weeds and cacti
• Beating the heat: they forage at dawn and dusk, slow down into torpor in the hottest, driest season, and cool off by spreading saliva on their forearms
• Status: listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, with numbers falling. Trapping them for sale is one of the threats

Tortoise or turtle?

Both belong to the same order, Testudines. Tortoises live on land, with short, strong feet made for digging and heavy, domed shells. Turtles mostly live in water and tend to have webbed feet and flatter, more streamlined shells.

The desert tortoise that lives wild around Joshua Tree is a different species from the Sulcata, and it is federally listed as threatened.

• Joshua Tree wildlife, the desert tortoise included

A long commitment

Sulcatas are often bought as hatchlings, and the San Diego Zoo warns that, cute as the babies are, they grow quickly and get extremely large. The Merck Veterinary Manual tells anyone choosing a reptile to think about how many years they can keep up and enlarge its home, and never to turn one loose in the wild.