Galapagian gigolo shows no signs of slowing down as tortoise fathers eight hatchlings
A FRISKY elderly tortoise nicknamed “Dirty Dirk” has amazed zookeepers after fathering eight hatchlings in a calendar year.
Dirk, a 70-year-old giant Galapagos tortoise, lives at Crocodiles of the World in Oxfordshire and has had four hatchlings with a female called Charlie and four with Isabella.
The reptile is named after the fictional lothario Dirk Diggler, from the film Boogie Nights, and is known in zoological circles for its amorous prowess. It was moved to the Brize Norton sanctuary in 2018 in an attempt to find it a lover as scientists mounted Britain’s first attempt to breed giant Galapagos tortoises.
Before Dirk’s mating success this year, Zurich Zoo was the only other place in Europe to successfully breed the species.
“It certainly shows that Dirk is a potentially very important tortoise within European zoos,” said Shaun Foggett, founder and director at Crocodiles of the World. “It is a big deal in that, for a decade or more, just one collection of giant Galapagos tortoises in Europe were able to breed the species.”
Jamie Gilks, head of reptiles at Crocodiles of the World, told The Daily Telegraph: “A male at Zoo Zurich named Jumbo has fathered almost 100 baby tortoises over the past 20 years. Behind Jumbo, Dirk may already be the second most successful breeding male within the European studbook.”
In March, it was revealed that Dirk had fathered two baby tortoises with the 21-year-old Charlie – the first time a British zoo had successfully bred the species. Dirk then fathered four more offspring via another female, Isabella, which hatched in July. Charlie then laid two more eggs fertilised by Dirk that have recently hatched, taking its 2022 tally to eight.
Dirk is thought to weigh more than 31 stone and was captured from its native Galapagos Islands in 1962.
It spent time at Rotterdam Zoo before being moved to London Zoo and then Crocodiles of the World. Zuzu, the third female in Dirk’s enclosure, is said to be the latest recipient of its advances and may yet provide more offspring.
The arrival of the hatchlings at Crocodiles of the World is a boost to the conservation status of the endangered species, as there are currently barely 15,000 giant Galapagos tortoises left in existence compared with more than 200,000 in the 19th century.
The species are slow and not afraid of people due to millennia of isolation away from predation on the Galapagos archipelago off the coast of Ecuador. These traits made them easy targets for the first human settlers to the idyllic islands who hunted the creatures for food.