Great A'Tuin
From Freepedia
Great A'Tuin is the fictional giant star turtle in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, who travels through space, carrying the four giant elephants (named Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon, and Jerakeen) who in turn carry the Discworld. A member of the species Chelys galactica, A'Tuin is the only turtle to ever feature on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Its shell is frosted with frozen methane, pitted with meteor craters, and scoured with asteroidal dust.
Great A'Tuin's sex is unknown, the inhabitants of the Disc being unable to peer underneath the turtle themselves, but is the subject of much speculation by some of the Disc's finest scientific minds - in an analogy to astrophysicists, specialists in this field are called astrochelonians. The sex of The World Turtle is pivotal in proving or disproving a number of conflicting theories about the destination of "Great A'Tuin's" journey through the cosmos. If (as one popular theory states) "Great A'Tuin" is moving to his (or her) mating grounds, then at the point of mating might the civilisations of the Disc be crushed or simply slide off? Attempts by telepaths to learn more about Great A'Tuin's intents have not met with much success, mainly because they did not realise that its brain functions on such a slow timescale. All they've been able to discern is that the Great A'Ttuin is looking forward to something.
Following the events in The Light Fantastic, Great A'Tuin attended the hatching of eight baby turtles, each with four baby elephants and a tiny Discworld of their own. They have since gone off on their own journeys. Whether this was the event the Great A'Tuin was looking forward to or merely one step towards its ultimate goal is unknown.
The Great A'Tuin frequently rolls on its belly to avoid asteroid collisions. This doesn't affect the Disc's population, other than to induce severe seasickness on anyone who happens to be looking at the night sky at that time. A small price to pay, one might think; after all, if the world were not on the back of a turtle, it would be vulnurable to any and all big rocks that might happen to plummet out of the sky!
