For The Love Of Turtles

[Lauri D]

Lately I have fallen back in love with turtles. I loved them as a kid (frogs and lizards as well), but lately I just can't get enough of them. Gigantic or small, I love them all.

I want to build a big turtle-tat or two with both aquatic and dry-land varieties. I want to name my first turtle "Elliot".

http://www.owos.net/images/Cute%20Hawsbill%20turtle%20@%20Mixing%20Bowl,%20Bloody%20Bay.jpg

Anyone else here a turtle fan?

[livius drusus]

I rode on the shell of a Galopagos at Busch Gardens once when I was a kid. It was beyond cool. Oh, and we had a turtle that lived in our back yard. My mom named her Allegria, which means happiness or cheerfulness in Italian. Mom said she brought us good luck.

:seaturt:

[viscousmemories]

I wasn't a turtle fan before that picture, but that guy is really cool. :yup:

[Goliath]

I've always thought turtles were pretty cool. Once I get a house, a turtle is definitely going to go on my "possible pets" list.

[Ymir's blood]

Why 'Elliot?"

The blue background on that picture just cries out to be photoshopped, but I couldn't find something good to use it with...

[Goliath]

Why 'Elliot?"

The blue background on that picture just cries out to be photoshopped, but I couldn't find something good to use it with...

Well, hell...you've got a turtle against a blue-screen. Can't you use photoshop to make the turtle fly next to some X-wings or something?

:D

[Socratoad]

Yeppers, turtles are nice pipple. I have Todd, Minerva, Pebbles and Rodan

[livius drusus]

He he... Rodan...

[Lauri D]

Re: "Elliot", I am not sure. It's my beloved grandfather's middle name. It's the kid-in-ET's (Henry something) name, and turtles kinda look like ET. It's the last name of several of my favorite authors and actors. It's ELLIOT!!! :D (FWIW I have sometimes considered changing my last name to something totally separate from either my maiden name now so long past and my current last name which is a throwback from my barely-legal marriage). "Elliot" has always been my first choice. Maybe I was an "Elliot" in a past life? :P )

"If its sanity you are after there is no recipe like laughter."
-- Henry Elliot

Of course T.S is not spelled quite the same, but the spirit of it could carry over ;)

[Lauri D]

Dangit, I just *KNEW* you had turtles in your menagerie, Toad!

/me flushes bright green with envy

[LadyShea]

When we lived in Simi Valley, my parents' friends/neighbors moved into their house to find two desert tortoises living in their yard. It is illegal to have desert tortoises as they are endangered, but the State didn't know how long they had been there, where they came from, believed our friends that they had not stolen them from the wild, and gave them a license to keep them. The bigger one suddenly one day starting attacking the smaller one and flipping him over onto his back and cracked his shell, so the friends gave the little on to us. His name was Gus and he was the coolest thing ever! He dug himself a den in a corner of the yard, and came out to eat grass or flowers, or stand in the sprinklers during the summer. He hibernated all winter. One day we found him 5 houses down the block eating shrubbery, LOL. He was still alive when we moved from the house some 10 years later and the new owners were thrilled to inheret him and his license.

When we were in Cancun, the hotel had protected a turtle egg nest by building a little shed around it, and they hatched while we were there. All the guests got to pick up a baby and take him to the water to swim out to sea....one of my fave memories

Yes, I like turtles, and I think you should get one.

[Socratoad]

Then there was Elliot Ness

[freemonkey]

That's a cool turtle, I've had a little brass sea turtle on my keyring for years.

When I was a kid, my stepdad brought back a little soft-shelled, long-nosed water turtle from a fishing trip. We had it for years.

[The Lone Ranger]

Yeppers, turtles are nice pipple. I have Todd, Minerva, Pebbles and Rodan

Rodan? Shouldn't that be Gamera?


I love turtles myself (and snakes, and lizards, and frogs) -- they're neat, neat animals, in my opinion.


Two "turtle"-related stories I remember reading:

Charles Darwin, on his trip to the Galapagos Islands in the 1830s aboard H.M.S. Beagle marked the shell of one of the tortoises he encountered. The tortoise was an adult when Darwin marked it, and no-one knows how old. In the 1960s, that tortoise was still wandering around, healthy and hale, when he fell into a hole and was killed in the fall.

The naturalist John Nichols marked several box turtles on Long Island, back in the 1920s. People still encounter one of those marked turtles on occasion even today.


Then there's the sad story of Lonesome George:

http://www.viaggiaresempre.it/05solitarioGeorge.jpg

As many of you no-doubt know, there are several subspecies of giant Galapagos tortoises, some of them restricted to only a single island in the archipelago. The subspecies Geochelone elephantopus abingdoni was native to the island of Pinta. Whalers and sealers devastated the tortoise populations on the islands, because they would capture the tortoises and put them into the holds of their ships for food -- because the tortoises could survive for up to a year in the ships' holds without food or water.

In 1906, Pinta was visited by a team from the California Academy of Sciences, who collected three males from the island, the only ones they could find.

As if the devastation caused by people capturing the tortoises for food wasn't bad enough, rats, goats, and dogs further devastated the tortoise populations. Fishermen deliberately released goats onto the island (so that they could be hunted for food), and the goats promptly destroyed most of the vegetation that the tortoises depended upon for food. Introduced rats and dogs killed young tortoises and destroyed their nests.

In 1971, National Park wardens on Pinta encountered a single male tortoise, who became known as "Lonesome George," since he's almost certainly the only surviving representative of his subspecies. George was brought back to the Charles Darwin Research Station, where he lives to this day.

Researchers at the station have attempted to breed George with females of the subspecies Geochelone elephantopus becki (from Wolf Island), in order to ensure the survival of at least some of Geochelone elephantopus abingdoni's genes, but so far, no young tortoises have come of these attempts -- perhaps because there's too much genetic distance between the two subspecies for them to be capable of interbreeding.

Sadly, when George goes, Geochelone elephantopus abingdoni goes with him.


*Sniff*

Michael

Edited to add:
By the way, turtles (particularly the water-living species) can carry Salmonella, which is why it's illegal to sell them as pets in some states. It's generally a good idea to wash your hands thoroughly after handling any kind of water-living turtle, such as a Painted Turtle or a Slider. (Tortoises don't generally pose this problem, of course.)

Turtles (and other reptiles) need a certain amount of UV light, or they don't do well in captivity. If you get a pet turtle and want to keep it indoors, be sure you get a lamp that provides your pet with adequate UV light.

[LadyShea]

Wow, Michael, poor old George :(. Thanks for sharing though.

Is it possible he was simply past the breeding age?

[The Lone Ranger]

He's probably perfectly fertile. That's the thing about turtles in general -- they don't seem to age. 70-year-old box turtles are just as fertile as 10-year-olds. Once they reach maturity, turtles seem to just keep plugging along 'til something kills them.

We should be so lucky!

Cheers,

Michael

[Corona688]

http://burningsmell.dyndns.org/turtle-takeoff.jpg

By popular demand!

[Godless Dave]

So are you going to marry a box turtle? Senator Cornyn (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43048-2004Jul11.html) was right.

[pzmyers]

That picture looks rather familiar.

http://pharyngula.org/images/gamera.jpg

[Lauri D]

:bow: Corona688!!! :bow:

I love it! That might have to be my new wallpaper. :D

*edited to add - well he didn't say anything about a WOMAN and a box turtle, so I'm still in the clear :P (What a freak though! Where's *his* mind at? :chin: )

[Socratoad]

http://burningsmell.dyndns.org/turtle-takeoff.jpg

By popular demand!

Its a bird, its a plane, No its SUPERTURTLE

[godfry n. glad]

I had a box turtle as a pet when I was a pre-teen...I thought it was cool.

Recently, my late wife and I swam with the green sea turtles off of Maui... That was really cool.

My garden is replete with turtle icons, which used to go with the real rabbit.

godfry

[lisarea]

A couple of months ago, for no reason other than that I am an idiot and all, I was looking around at the Boulder Humane Society website, and I followed a link for reptile referrals, which led me to this young gentleman (http://www.corhs.org/turtles/smokeysulcata.html):

http://www.corhs.org/turtles/smokeysulcata1.jpg

He's got a deformed shell:

http://www.corhs.org/turtles/smokeysulcata3.jpg

Anyway, I can't have him, but I keep going back and looking at him anyway. I just really really like that guy for some reason.

[livius drusus]

Oh my god Sulcatas eat Kudzu! He'd be worth his considerable weight in gold down south.

[Socratoad]

A couple of months ago, for no reason other than that I am an idiot and all, I was looking around at the Boulder Humane Society website, and I followed a link for reptile referrals, which led me to this young gentleman (http://www.corhs.org/turtles/smokeysulcata.html):

http://www.corhs.org/turtles/smokeysulcata1.jpg

He's got a deformed shell:

http://www.corhs.org/turtles/smokeysulcata3.jpg

Anyway, I can't have him, but I keep going back and looking at him anyway. I just really really like that guy for some reason.

It makes me so very happy that you like that little guy because last time I had a little talk with him he just could not stop praising you ....... really, after a while it became positively embarrassing. :turtle: :bgirl: :toad:

[godfry n. glad]

Oh my god Sulcatas eat Kudzu! He'd be worth his considerable weight in gold down south.

Please tell me if you find one that eats copious quantities of English ivy.

godfry

[freemonkey]

Oh my god Sulcatas eat Kudzu! He'd be worth his considerable weight in gold down south.

Please tell me if you find one that eats copious quantities of English ivy.

godfry

Or blackberry vines!!

[Lauri D]

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/ecoregions/global200/images/regions/229.jpg

Ready or not, here I come! :)

[godfry n. glad]

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/ecoregions/global200/images/regions/229.jpg

Ready or not, here I come! :)

Run for it! Toward the water! Before you become gull chow!

godfry