Billy the TORTOISE will become a father after 110 years

A tortoise called Billy is to become a father at the age of 110 after finally mating with the female who has spurned his advances for 15 years.

Billy has at last mated with his ‘wife’ Tammy, 47, and the couple now have seven eggs due to hatch in eight to 12 weeks.

Peter Crane, the tortoise’s 50 year-old owner, found the eggs buried in six inches of soil in his garden last week after spotting Tammy, who has never laid any eggs, crawling into a flower bed.

Mr Crane, of King’s Lynn, Norfolk, said Tammy had rejected Billy’s amorous advances on numerous occasions and was regularly chased by him around the garden.

He was given Billy, a spur thigh tortoise, by an 80-year-old relative 15 years ago after he had been cared for by their family since he was born in 1899.

”I didn’t realise he had it in him but apparently the older they get the more fertile they become and he’s obviously raring to go – he’s a very lively tortoise,” he said. ”Billy chases Tammy around the garden and they head butt each other as a mating ritual.

”Tammy even has a dent in the back of her shell where he has given her a nasty bang.”