40 Fun Facts About Gopher Tortoise

Depression-era Southerners nicknamed the gopher tortoise a 'chicken' after which US president?

Herbert Hoover was blamed for the hard times, so free tortoise meat became 'Hoover chicken'. Hunting gopher tortoises for food is now illegal.

The gopher tortoise's species name comes from Polyphemus, a cave-dwelling giant of which kind in Greek myth?

Cyclops Polyphemus is the one-eyed giant blinded by Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. The tortoise shares his name because it, too, lives in a cave.

Gus, a gopher tortoise who lived past 100, spent more than 80 years in a museum in which Canadian city?

Halifax treats Gus as a local icon. The Nova Scotia Museum's director bought him for five dollars in 1942, and for years he wandered the halls freely.

Beachgoers have carried gopher tortoise hatchlings into the ocean after mistaking them for which animals?

Sea turtles nest in the same dunes, but gopher tortoises cannot swim well and can easily drown. Clawed toes instead of flippers give the tortoise away.

Because hundreds of other animals shelter in its burrows, the gopher tortoise is given which ecological label?

Keystone species fits because more than 350 other species use the burrows, from frogs and mice to owls. Many of them decline wherever the tortoises vanish.

What feature of a gopher tortoise's underground nest decides whether the eggs hatch as males or females?

Its temperature settles it: nests warmer than about 30°C produce females and cooler ones produce males. A cool enough nest hatches nothing but brothers.

Which natural force keeps gopher tortoise habitat sunny and sends other animals fleeing into the burrows?

Fire burns away shade so the low plants tortoises eat can grow. As flames pass overhead, the cool tunnels become a bunker for frogs, mice and other wildlife.

Florida officials warn that doing what to a gopher tortoise's shell can poison it and block sunlight?

Painting it is illegal in Florida. Paint can let toxic chemicals into the bloodstream, cause breathing trouble and stop the tortoise making vitamins from sunlight.

The gopher tortoise is the only tortoise found naturally east of which great American river?

The Mississippi is the dividing line. Its closest cousins all live far to the west in arid country, leaving it the lone tortoise of the humid Southeast.

The gopher tortoise's stumpy, round hind feet are routinely compared to those of which giant land mammal?

Elephant is the standard comparison: the pillar-like back feet carry the weight while the flat, heavily scaled front limbs do the digging.

The gopher tortoise digs with flat, heavily scaled front legs that biologists liken to which tool?

Shovel is the usual comparison: the broad, flat forelimbs and thick claws can dig a tunnel that averages 15 feet long and more than 6 feet deep.

A gopher tortoise seldom needs to drink because it gets most of its water from which source?

The plants it eats supply nearly all of it. A gopher tortoise will still sip from a puddle that has pooled after a rainstorm.

Gopher tortoises need which kind of ground to dig their deep burrows?

Dry sandy soil drains well and is soft enough to tunnel through. Homebuilders prize the same high, dry land, which is the root of the tortoise's troubles.

Under Florida law, what must happen to gopher tortoises before their land is cleared for building?

They are relocated under a state permit, often to protected land. Developers could once buy permits that let tortoises be entombed in their burrows instead.

Florida officials say a person helping a gopher tortoise across a busy road should set it down where?

The side it was heading for is the only move the state allows. Driving a gopher tortoise somewhere that looks better counts as illegal possession.

A courting male gopher tortoise walks in circles near the female while repeatedly making which movement?

Bobbing his head is the opening move, and it quickens as the female comes closer. He then nips at her legs and the front of her shell.

When rival male gopher tortoises ram each other over a female, the loser may end up in which position?

Flipped on his back is how a bout can end. Males also carry a longer prong at the front of the lower shell than females do.

Gopher tortoises signal to one another with scent from glands located on which part of the body?

The chin carries scent glands that swell in the breeding season. A tortoise may wipe a foreleg scale across them and present it to a possible mate.

The gopher tortoise is the state reptile of which US state, which shares the Okefenokee Swamp with Florida?

Georgia chose it as state reptile. Neighbouring Florida, whose state reptile is the alligator, named the gopher tortoise its official state tortoise.

Gopher tortoises are most at home under which Southeastern conifer, once dominant across the coastal plain?

Longleaf pine grows in open stands that let sunlight reach the ground, feeding the low plants tortoises graze. Only a small fraction of that forest survives.

Which federally threatened, nonvenomous reptile spends the winter in the burrows of the gopher tortoise?

Eastern indigo snake numbers have fallen as tortoise colonies disappeared. In the cooler parts of its range it relies on their burrows to get through winter.

Hunters have illegally poured gasoline into gopher tortoise burrows to flush out which venomous animals?

Rattlesnakes were the target of the practice, known as gassing. The fumes can also kill harmless animals sharing the tunnel, including protected ones.

Florida banned which festival contest that used captured wild gopher tortoises as the competitors?

Speed races with captured gopher tortoises are now outlawed in Florida. Crowding the animals together can spread disease, and many were never returned to where they were found.

A gopher tortoise burrow can be told from a mammal's round hole by which shape of entrance?

Half-moon entrances, flat on the bottom and domed on top, match the outline of the tortoise itself. The width of the opening shows how big the digger is.

Wildlife officials say gopher tortoise eggs are about the size of which piece of sports equipment?

Ping-pong ball is the usual comparison. A female lays one clutch of about five to nine a year, often in the mound of loose earth at her burrow's mouth.

Which state marks the western edge of the gopher tortoise's range, where it is federally listed as threatened?

Louisiana's southeastern corner is as far west as wild gopher tortoises go. Federal protection covers only this western end of the range; farther east, state laws do the job.

Gopher tortoises help wild plants spread across the forest floor by doing what with their seeds?

Passing them in droppings scatters seeds wherever the tortoise wanders. The grazer ends up replanting its own pasture, one meal at a time.

A male gopher tortoise can be told from a female by which feature of his lower shell?

It curves inward, a dip that helps the male balance on the female's domed shell during mating. Her lower shell is flat.

The gopher frog, a regular lodger in gopher tortoise burrows, has a breeding call likened to which sound?

A deep snore is how the male's call is described. Young gopher frogs fresh from the pond depend on tortoise burrows and similar holes to stay alive.

Biologists borrow which clothing word for the mound of sand at the mouth of a gopher tortoise burrow?

Apron is the term. Females often lay their eggs in this soft, sunny mound, and fresh tracks across it are a sign the burrow is in use.

The shells of dead gopher tortoises are the only known food for the larvae of which rare insect?

A moth, Ceratophaga vicinella, has caterpillars that eat the keratin of the shell. They anchor themselves with silk tubes sunk into the ground beneath it.

Which native bunchgrass, a staple of the gopher tortoise's diet, shares its name with a region of the Deep South?

Wiregrass carpets the ground of open woodland, and gopher tortoises graze it alongside legumes and low fruit. The Wiregrass Region is named for the plant.

Which kind of illness, easily spread when people move animals around, is a known threat to wild gopher tortoises?

A respiratory disease caused by Mycoplasma bacteria gives tortoises runny noses and swollen eyes. Carriers can look healthy, which makes moving them risky.

Researchers found that gopher tortoises struggle to climb out once they wander between which pair of obstacles?

Railway rails act like walls to a low-slung tortoise, which seldom manages to cross them. Shallow trenches dug under the track give it a way through.

A low evergreen shrub whose fruit gopher tortoises eat was named after them and is called the gopher what?

Apple completes the name. The gopher apple hugs the ground of dry Southern sandhills, and its fruit feeds tortoises along with pawpaws and blackberries.

Female gopher tortoises, plant-eaters by habit, sometimes gnaw which unexpected items around nesting time?

Bones turn up in the diet, along with carrion and insects. Such meals are rare and are eaten mostly by females just before and after nesting.

Unlike the grey-brown adults, gopher tortoises in their first year of life are mostly which colour?

Yellow-orange and brown is the hatchling pattern, and the bright colour fades with age. A newly hatched gopher tortoise is only an inch or two long.

How deep a gopher tortoise burrow goes depends on the depth of the sand and of which other underground feature?

The water table sets the floor for digging. Gopher tortoise burrows average about 6.5 feet deep, and the deepest on record reach around 10 feet.

Which term do biologists use for the hundreds of animal species that take shelter in gopher tortoise burrows?

Commensals is the word for the lodgers. Some, such as the Florida mouse, dig their own small side tunnels off the tortoise's main burrow.

What does Florida's wildlife agency name as the primary threat to the survival of the gopher tortoise?

Habitat loss leads the list. More than 80% of gopher tortoise habitat is privately owned, so the species' future rests largely on what landowners do.