If you have ever wondered where Donkrag Dam in the Addo Elephant National Park got its name from, scoot closer and listen up.

The Domkrag Dam is named after a giant 45-year-old 60kg mountain tortoise which once roamed the park. “Domkrag” is the Afrikaans word for a “jack” (the thing you lift cars with), and this tortoise had a peculiar habit of walking underneath cars and trying to lift them up with enormous strength.

Domkrag came to a sad end when he fell into an aardvark hole and couldn’t get himself out. His shell is still on display in the Interpretive Centre.

– Mountain or Leopard Tortoise – The genus name Stigmochelys is a combination of the Greek words stigma meaning ‘marked’ and chelone meaning ‘tortoise’. The specific epithet pardalis is derived from the Greek word pardos meaning ‘spotted’, after the spotted shell.

This tortoise is the largest tortoise species in Southern Africa and is a grazing species that favours semiarid, thorny to grassland habitats. In both very hot and very cold weather, it may dwell in abandoned fox, jackal, or aardvark burrows. The leopard tortoise does not dig other than to make nests in which to lay eggs. Given its propensity for grassland habitats, it grazes extensively upon mixed grasses. It also favours succulents and thistles.