100-year-old tortoise dies after 78-year bender
LONESOME George, a tortoise believed to be the last of his species, has expired after a 78-year drugs and alcohol binge.
George never mated throughout his long life, preferring a dissolute lifestyle of all-night tortoise parties.
Naturalist Emma Bradford said: “While George’s fellow reptiles settled down and had eggs, he continued caning it.
“Most days he would just wander around the Galapagos islands off his head, admiring the vivid colours. Tourists would give him drugs, putting pills on the ground in front of him which he would very slowly nibble at, nodding his wizened head in woozy gratitude.
“If he was feeling paranoid on a comedown he would simply retreat into his shell.”
George was the last of the Pinta tortoises, a species known for its debauched behaviour. Because of the creatures’ slow metabolism it typically takes them a decade to come up on a pill.
Galapagos tortoise Tom Logan said: “George had been hanging out with a group of iguanas that were right messy bastards, always getting on it around the rock pools.
“I said to him, you’re a hundred now, you can’t keep staying up all night with these younger lizards.
“But he said he didn’t want to live to be 170 if he’d never had any fun.”