Spare a moment's thought for Kiki, the 146-year-old tortoise who passed on this weekend in Paris after suffering an infection. A star attraction at the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes since 1923, Kiki captured the hearts of his French captors because of a very special trait: Turtle liked to bang.
According to Marie-Claude Bomsel, a vet at the zoo, he was so vigorous in his pursuit of female tortoises that his grunts could be heard from the other end of the zoo and the Jardin des Plantes.And he was still going right up to the end."To be honest, from time to time I even saw him go after a wheelbarrow. You see what we were dealing with," Bomsel told French radio. "That was one of his characteristics. We all loved him."
Frédéric Lewino, a science writer at Le Point magazine, wrote that, though advanced in age, Kiki remained "fresh" to the end.Farewell, Kiki. Hopefully you are fucking portable conveyances in a better place now.Kiki weighed 250kg and had to be moved about using a forklift.
"However crushed they were by his 250kg, the females suffered his assaults without any complaint," he remarked.
I watched two giant tortoises loudly going at it at the DC Zoo one day. It was a hit with kids of all ages.
I saw ducks doing it at the ...oh, one of those annoying upstate counties all the yups moved to in the 80's. You could tell the city people from the locals just by who was quietly horrified and who didn't even notice.
Extra credit for the correctly accented é.
RIP, dear Kiki.
You were the Tiger Woods of turtles.
NOW I know why the hare ran out of gas.
"The females suffered his assaults without any complaint."
Oh, Kiki.
I'm fascinated by the logistics. At 250 kg, how in the hell did he even hoist himself up to do any assaulting?
Getting her shell off's the hard part. So many snaps and latches.
I bet they like it slow.
Slow jams has a new meaning.
Une brouette? C'est kinki!
You guys don't use a forklift when you fuck?
I couldn't tell reading that Guardian article if it was really just a hilarious Tortoise or if the writeup was just a sly british-french in-joke that we don't totally get over here in the colonies. At any rate, it's a first rate piece of zoo journalism. (an often-neglected genre)
I just hope this doesn't encourage Mario Batali even more.