The Texas Tortoise, Gopherus berlandieri, is one of four species of tortoise that are native to North America. Its range begins in southern Texas and extends southward into the Mexican states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas. Its preferred habitat is dry scrub and grasslands. Succulent plants, a preferred food of the Texas tortoise, are common in these areas. They especially like the fruit of cacti such as the prickly pear.
Tortoise is the name given to the land-dwelling reptiles most of whose body is shielded by a special shell.
The giant tortoises of the Galápagos Islands helped Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution, since the isolated populations on the different islands, although descended from a common ancestor, had diverged to different forms.
Turtles and tortoises are the only surviving branch of the even more ancient clade Anapsida, which includes groups such as the procolophonoids, millerettids and pareiasaurs.
Tortoises must have suitable soils and terrain for constructing a burrow and must have adequate annual and perennial plants in the spring and/or summer for forage.
Tortoises are measured with calipers, instruments consisting of a pair of movable curved legs fastened together at one end.
Adult male tortoises have a longer and up-curved gular horn, a concave plastron (a dish-shaped depression on the underside of the shell near the tail), a longer tail, and chin glands or knobs on the chin.
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