75-Year-Old Tortoise Dead at Pa. Zoo

Pittsburgh Zoo officials said the zoo’s oldest resident, a yellow-footed tortoise named Big Mo, has died at the estimated age of 75.

The zoo announced that Big Mo, a tortoise that was brought to the zoo as a wild-caught adult in 1972, died Sunday after a battle with a respiratory infection, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Friday.

We didn’t have any birth records for him, so we made an educated estimate using his size to determine age, said Henry Kacprzyk, curator of Kids Kingdoms and reptiles at the zoo. Size is indicative of age because tortoises grow throughout their entire lives.

Mo weighed 86 pounds. He measured 29 inches long and was 21 inches wide.