A tortoise has been rescued after it was apparently stuck under a floor for nearly 10 years and it is believed that it survived thanks to its slow metabolism.
The incident took place in, Itacaja, in the Brazilian state of Tocantins, on 7th February.
The video shows the tortoise being found under the floor, with a builder smashing through tile to get to it.
He then removes the reptile from the floor.
The house where it was located belongs to a woman named as Luiza Coelha da Cruz Aguiar, 60.
She had asked a bricklayer to check for a possible leak in her house and had no idea that the tortoise was under the floor and could survive so many years trapped in there.
She told local media: “It was unbelievable, we thought that this tortoise came in the gravel truck that we asked for more than nine years ago to put there [at the back of the house], and it [the animal] must have come along very small.
“When we removed it, we saw that there were some deformations in the shell, which may have been caused by it being very close to the tiles and having become trapped.”
Biologist Aluisio Vasconcelos de Carvalho told local media that the tortoise may have survived next to its slow metabolism.
He said: “Aestivation is basically the ability of a reptile to sleep during the hottest period of the year. In other words, animals engage in this process to save energy. Some species do this, but not all.”
He added that it no doubt survived off insects, saying: “As it is omnivorous and eats everything, the tortoise will eat whatever it finds.
“So, as there was no vegetation or anything else to feed on, only insects, due to the humidity of the environment, that is what it learned to eat.”
And he said: “Reptiles have a slow metabolism, so much so that they can go 15 to 20 days without eating.
“Their digestion process is slow, so they can go long periods without eating, because the food they consume allows them to do everything they need with the little food they eat.”
It is currently unclear how long a tortoise could survive in such conditions, with Vasconcelos saying: “There are not many studies explaining the extreme conditions in which these reptiles can survive.
“Especially here in Brazil, specifically in Tocantins, it is difficult to find studies in which an animal has gone a long time without eating, or spent a long time in aestivation and even in the cold or heat.”
The deformation of the shell, sensitivity to light and lack of melanin in the animal’s body are factors that reinforce the theory that the tortoise could have been under the floor for years, reports said.
The expert said: “It all depends, in fact, on when it got in, because I have two theories. Either it got in as a youngster, not exactly a cub, digging a hole, because they used to dig holes, and got in through the side of the house, until it reached the place where it was found, and it couldn’t get out.
“Or it got in as a baby and grew up there, within the conditions it had.”
It is unclear what species of tortoise it was.
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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
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