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- Johnny |
THE MIGHTY DESERT TORTOISE |
Riggie is a North American Desert Tortoise. He is extermely friendly as tortoises go. Most tortoises are very shy. He has lived around people long enough he is very tolarant of us.
His favorite things to do are sleep and eat. He hibernates five to seven months of the year, depending on the weather. During an average winter he will go to sleep in October and wake up in March. The longer the winter, the longer he sleeps. During the summer months when he is not in hibernation he sleeps 16 to 20 hours a day. In his normal desert habitat he would dig a burrow into the earth for shelter from the sun, but in the mild coastal climate of the Pleasant Valley he seems to like sunbathing and will often spend an entire summer day stretched out on the patio snoozing in the sunshine.
When he is not sleeping he is generally eating or looking for food. This is not a problem since the backyard is full of things he can eat. He is also accustomed to walking up to people and expecting to be fed, and usually he is not dissapointed. His favorite things to eat include most fruits as well as most green vegetables. He is especially fond of grapes, peaches, apples, avocodo, lettice and bananas. He seems to prefer the geraniums if he is forced to eat out of the backyard flowerbed.
Riggie actually makes an excellent pet. He is a very low maintainence pet, never needing rabies shots, flee baths or grooming. He is very quiet, never waking up the neighbors with noises late at night. He is very 'stay at home oriented', never trying to get out and roam the neighborhood. There is virtually no poop to clean up, and no wierd odors around the house or yard. He can live to be up to seventy years old so he won't die and break your heart. He is a great conversation starter, since he is such an interesting and unusual creature. All in all, the near perfect pet.
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Desert Tortoise Facts...... The natural habitat for the Desert Tortoise ranges from Utah to central Mexico and from the California Desert to the Great Planes. He has no ears and very poor eyesight. He finds food using his keen sense of smell. He does, however have an eardrum inside his head. This is used to sense ground vibrations. His shell is made of two layers. The inner layer is made of tightly knit bones while the outer layer is similar to fingernails. Until a Desert Tortoise is about five years old their shell is relatively soft, leaving them vulnarable to preditors. The top part of the shell is called the 'dome' or 'carapice' and the bottom is called the 'underbelly' or 'plastron'. Other than his shell the skelatal structure is typical of most quadrapeds. The top of his shell is attached to his spine and the bottom of his shell forms his ribcage. The bone that protrudes from his shell under his head is the Gular Horn. It helps protect his head from ground obsticles and it is used to 'joust' with other male tortoises for mating rights. I know that Riggie is a male because he has a concave underbelly. A female tortise has a flat underbelly. He will reach sexual maturity at 15 - 20 years old. Their coloring will range from tans and light browns to shades of green. Their thick legs and large flat feet aid in walking on sand and in digging. They have no teeth but do have a bone hard jaw. Their natural diet consists of cactus, desert flowers, leaves and grass. They drink water by sucking it through their nose and are capable of storing water in their bodies for up to a year. They also have the unique ability to filter their urine to extract usable water.
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I was given Riggie by my friend Norman about eight years ago. Norman had named him The Rigamortise Tortoise because he slept most of the time, hence the name Riggie. This neat little exo-skeletal creature has brought me alot of enjoyment. If you are a fan of the Desert Tortoise or just curious about them you will enjoy this page.