For thousands of years, this giant tortoise has been digging burrows across the Sahara, and scientists now think those tunnels may play a bigger ecological role than anyone realised

Across the harsh, sun-scorched edges of the Sahara and the Sahel, one of Africa's largest reptiles has been quietly doing something that scientists are only now beginning to properly study, digging burrows so extensive that they may be reshaping the very soil around it. The African spurred tortoise, known scientifically as Centrochelys sulcata, is the largest tortoise species found on mainland Africa and the third largest in the world, with adult males sometimes weighing more than a hundred kilograms.

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