Injured turtle gets a second chance on four wheels
Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Installing wheels on a tortoise might seem like a cruel joke—but a veterinary practice in the Philippines recently did so to help out an Aldabra giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea) with troubled hind legs. As the name suggests, Aldabra giant tortoises are among the largest land tortoises. Also referred to as the Aldabra tortoise or giant tortoise, this reptile can weigh up to 550 pounds and can live over 150 years. Interestingly, Charles Darwin, among others, worked to protect the species. The tortoise in question lived at a private zoo, but its legs weren’t working properly. The zoo referred the case to Nielsen Donato, chief surgeon at Vets in Practice, a vet practice with seven locations in metro Manila. Donato and his team did X-rays on their large patient, but didn’t detect dislocations or fractures. Wheeled tortoise “Mostly we think it could be weakness of the hind legs, could be neurological in origin,” Donato tells Popular Science. “Probably there were …
