All but ageless, turtles face their biggest threat: Humans

[nam78_two]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/science/12turt.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&8dpc&oref=slogin


This was no euphemistic brushoff, no reptilian version of “Sorry, I’ll be busy that night washing my hair.” Paddling around in a tropically appointed pool at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the husky female Gibba turtle from South America made all too palpable her disdain for the petite male Gibba that pursued her. He crawled onto the parqueted hump of her bark-brown shell. She shrugged and wriggled until he slipped off. He looped around to show her his best courtship maneuvers, bobbing his head, quivering his neck. She kicked him aside like a clot of algae and kept swimming.

From top, a leopard tortoise, a South African land-based species and a common pet. Center, a New Guinea snakeneck turtle, a carnivorous species found in the river system in the southern part of the country. Above, a big-headed turtle, native to mountain streams in Southern China and related to North American snapping turtles.

“I feel sorry for the little guy,” said Jack Cover, a turtle specialist and the general curator of the aquarium. “He’s making no progress, she’s got zero interest in him, yet he just keeps coming back for more.”

And why not? The male Gibba may be clueless, he may at the moment have the sex appeal of a floating toupee, but he is a turtle, and, as a major new book and a wealth of recent discoveries make abundantly clear, turtles are built for hard times. Through famine, flood, heat wave, ice age, a predator’s inspections, a paramour’s rejections, turtles take adversity in stride, usually by striding as little as possible. “The tale of the tortoise and the hare is the turtle’s life story,” said Mr. Cover, who calls himself a card-carrying member of the “turtle nerds” club. “Slow and steady wins the race.”

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. I have a Texas desert tortoise as a pet

From the article:

"...Dr. Gibbons told of a friend whose his pet box turtle would respond to the sound of a spoon being tapped on a glass ice cream bowl by emerging from behind the couch, walking over to its owner, rearing up on its hind legs and waiting to be spoon-fed its just dessert. “Had I not seen this a few times myself,” he said, “I would not have believed it.” ..."



I live in California and found the little guy walking down the center of the street in a suburban development near the ocean so he must have been a runaway pet (as he is native to the Texas desert).

They make great pets and are not as dumb as people might think. They communicate displeasure by making blowing or hissing noises. My tortoise comes to me to ask for food by nudging my foot and making a sniffing noise at the ground. And when I pick it up it shows affection by moving its head out of its shell and making repeated contact with my hand.

[spanone]

2. Sadly, humans face the same threat.