Texas Tortoise

About the Texas Tortoise

The Texas Tortoise is the state's only native tortoise and a true child of the Tamaulipan brushland, plodding between prickly pear patches in deep South Texas on elephantine legs. Prickly pear is both its pantry and its canteen; the tortoise gets most of its water from the cactus it eats.

Unlike its burrowing relatives, the Texas Tortoise usually shelters in shallow scrapes under thorny brush rather than digging deep burrows. It is slow to mature and long-lived, which makes every adult precious; the species is protected as Threatened in Texas, and it is illegal to collect one.

This tortoise was photographed taking its sweet time through Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park in Mission.