‘Totally Surprising and Rather Horrifying’: Giant Tortoises Eat Baby Birds

For the first time, scientists in the Seychelles captured footage of one of the hulking reptiles stalking and killing a helpless chick.

It may be time to retire the phrase “gentle giant.” Researchers in the Seychelles have filmed a giant tortoise hunting and devouring a tern chick in a single gulp. The scientists involved in the discovery say it is the first time such an act has been caught on camera. Even they are shaken up. “It’s totally surprising and rather horrifying,” said Justin Gerlach, an island ecologist at Peterhouse, Cambridge in England. “The tortoise is deliberately pursuing this bird and kills it, and then eats it. So yeah, it’s hunting.”