Morla, the Aged One

Here is a deliciously random picture and a delicious and random memory - Morla, the Aged One, in Wolfgang Petersen's adaptation of Michael Ende's The Neverending Story. While I have run into few stories or scenes of giant turtles or tortoises since this one, it has never left my memory. Does anyone else remember Atreyu climbing this "mountain" in the swamp, precariously pulling himself up by the branches and brush growing on Morla's shell? Or Morla's terrible sneezes, that would knock the young hero off his tree?

"Do you have a cold?"

"No...I'm allergic...to you...."

Why aren't there more giant and terrifically aged turtles in our stories? (Let's make some.)