Chelonoidis niger microphyes

Chelonoidis niger microphyes, the Volcán Darwin giant tortoise, is a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise found only in the Galápagos archipelago in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Its range is about 67 square kilometres on the south-western slope of Darwin Volcano on northern Isabela Island, where it lives in deciduous and evergreen forest and dry grassland. The type locality is Tagus Cove, and the name microphyes, meaning small when full-grown, rests on describer Albert Günther's mistaken belief that the 57.2 centimetre holotype was an adult male; males actually grow to about 135 centimetres and females to about 86. The tortoises are active mainly in the early morning and late afternoon, wallow in muddy pools after heavy rain, and migrate seasonally between the caldera and the lower slopes. They eat grass, leaves, berries and lichens in the wet season and mainly cacti in the dry season. Some 500 to 1,000 mature individuals remain, a decline of 94 percent since 1840, and the subspecies is Endangered, threatened by past overexploitation and by introduced predators and grazers.