Desert Tortoise Archives - Wild About Utah

May 20, 2024May 20, 2024

Southwestern Utah Herps

Gila Monster Courtesy & © Jack Greene, photographer — Gila Monster
Courtesy Pixabay

Gila Monster
Courtesy & © Jack Greene, photographer

Gila Monster
Courtesy & © Jack Greene, photographer

Gila Monster
Courtesy & © Jack Greene, photographer

Desert Tortoise – Right of Hat
Courtesy & © Jack Greene, photographer

I’m going to go beyond birds a few hundred million years to their precursors, who thrived long before our feathered mini-dinosaurs evolved. These ancient beings continue to thrive to this day, which lured 14 USU students and I to join them in the Mojave wilds of southwestern Utah.

We camped at the Gunlock State Park, where a Utah DWR herpetologist joined us for several hours, who appeared to know every scaly and slimy critter within a 10-mile radius.
A few highlights came when a Smith’s Black headed snake was discovered beneath a cow paddy, about the size of a large worm. No one thought it possible to find such a tiny, shy being, unless you’re flipping cow poo! Other popular reptiles were the small, delicate banded gecko and the diminutive, invasive Pacific tree frog.

Saturday was spent in Snow Canyon State Park where we were entertained by Cheyenne, a young SUU student naturalist, who kept us riveted with stories on some of the more iconic herp residents. She was emphatic on how to keep the reptiles safe from park visitors and ravens. “If a tortoise is crossing the road, please help it to the other side in the same direction it’s headed. Otherwise, never pick them up for they may release stored water, which could mean their death from dehydration. She also cautioned us on leaving the trail, for the desert tortoise spends much of it’s life in its labyrinth of burros. “Your footstep could cause a collapse, entombing the animal.”

Next, Cheyenne pulled a fully mounted Gila monster from her magical tub. Oohs and ahhs were audible, the penultimate reptile. She enthralled them with its life history, spending up to 95% of its life underground, often in tortoise burrows, emerging during the spring months for mating and feeding. It may eat 1/3 of its weight in one meal, consisting of bird, tortoise, and snake eggs and young, young mammals, carrion, and whoever else smells delicious and small enough to fit in its ravenous maw. Many of the calories are stored in its tail, which nourishes the animal for much of the year. Amazingly, Gila monster venom is used for diabetes and obesity treatment. Asked if she had seen a Gila monster. “No, but it’s at the top of my list!” she said.

Following a Cheyenne led hike, we continued the herp search beyond the park boundary. A tortoise discovery brought considerable excitement and photos, a rare siting! But that was overshadowed a half hour later when a Gila monster decided to present itself to myself. I began shouting “monster” hoping to rein in the dispersed crew. They came scrambling through the creosote bushes in disbelief. We immediately sent a text to Cheyenne with the coordinates, hoping she would see her first Monster in the wild! Never have I witnessed more excitement in my students, a surreal moment. I must check with Cheyenne on her success in finding the monster!

The Gila monster is considered near threatened by the IUCN from habitat loss and pet trade. In Utah it is illegal to handle Gila monsters without a permit.

This is Jack Greene for Bridgerland Audubon Society and I am Wild About Utah and its herps

https://pixabay.com/photos/gila-lizard-dragon-reptile-monster-5536750/
Sound credit goes to J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin and Anderson, Howe, Wakeman.

Credits:

Images: Courtesy Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/photos/gila-lizard-dragon-reptile-monster-5536750/
Additional images Courtesy & © Jack Greene, photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & © Anderson, Howe and Wakeman,
Also includes audio Courtesy & © J. Chase & K.W. Baldwin
Text: Jack Greene, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham and Jack Greene, Author, Bridgerland Audubon, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Wild About Utah pieces authored by Jack Greene

Smith’s Black-headed Snake Tantilla hobartsmithi, Field Guide, Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Division of Natural Resources, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=tantilla%20hobartsmithi

Gila Monster, Heloderma suspectum, Field Guide, Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Division of Natural Resources, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=heloderma%20suspectum

Mojave Desert Tortoise Gopherus agassizii, Field Guide, Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Division of Natural Resources, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=gopherus%20agassizii

Western Banded Gecko – Coleonyx variegatus https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=coleonyx%20variegatus

Don’t keep illegal reptiles – including desert tortoises – or release pet reptiles, fish into wild, St George News, Sept 5, 2021, https://archives.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2021/12/05/prc-dont-keep-illegal-reptiles-or-release-pet-reptiles-fish-including-desert-tortoises-into-wild

A Ranger Moment: SUU student Cheyenne Mitchell speaks at OES, March 20, 2023 – by Jacob Horne, SUU News, Student Media, Southern Utah University https://suunews.net/2023/03/20/a-ranger-moment-suu-student-cheyenne-mitchell-speaks-at-oes/

Ask a herpetologist, Megen Kepas, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/wildlife-blog/1692-ask-a-herpetologist.html

Smith’s Black-headed Snake Tantilla hobartsmithi, https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/28499-Tantilla-hobartsmithi
Information about the Smith above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart_Muir_Smith

Gila Monster, Heloderma suspectum, IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/9865/13022716

August 22, 2016January 5, 2024

Desert Tortoise Research in the Red Cliff Desert Reserve

Hi, I’m Ann McLuckie and I work with the Division of Wildlife Resources working primarily on desert tortoises within the Red Cliff Desert Reserve. (Sound of walking in the background) We’re going out in the field today and we’re going to do a transect. We’ve done transects since 1997 and our ultimate goal is to estimate population densities and those densities will allow us to look at how tortoises are doing and then if we get densities over time we can see are the populations increasing, decreasing, or are they stable. What we’ve learned is that we have had some pretty dramatic events, such as wildfires in 2005 and a severe drought in 2002, that have impacted tortoise populations. So we’ve seen tortoises fairly stable until those two events and since we’ve actually had fairly stable populations, but at lower densities.

Oh – here’s a fresh tortoise scat! So where there’s a fresh tortoise scat there’s got to be a tortoise close by. (Sound of walking) Oh, I think I see a tortoise. I think it’s in a burrow. I’m going to get the mirror (sound of Ann setting down her backpack and unzipping it). Oh yep, there it is and I think we can get it because it’s right by the edge. Let’s see I’m going to crawl into the burrow here. Let me get my gloves (sound of gloves being removed from a plastic bag and rocks scraping). Ok there, I think I’ve got it.

So when we get a tortoise we take three measurements, two width measurements and one length measurement called the carapace length. The carapace is the upper shell of the tortoise and it gives us an idea of how old the tortoise is. So I’ll measure the tortoise. Ok. (Sound of calipers on the tortoise shell). Oh, this looks like an adult tortoise. Let see, let me sex it. The tortoise shell is made of the carapace, which is the upper shell, and then the plastron, which is the lower shell or the belly of the shell basically, and the gular is the bony plates that are under the chin. So males have a concave plastron and that allows it to mate with females so it can fit over the female shell and males also have a large gular.

We give each tortoise that we encounter a unique file number. On the edge of the carapace are what we call marginal scutes and those are just smaller sections of the shell and each of those marginal scutes is assigned a number. Whatever marginal scutes we file we add up those scutes and that gives that tortoise a unique number. So the number that this tortoise that we’re filing right now is going to have, let’s see, (sounds of flipping through datasheets) it’s going to have 3096, so that will be its number. (Sounds of filing the scutes). Ok, I think that’s about it. And we have encountered tortoises that have been previously filed and we have a whole database of those tortoises so we can just go back to our database and figure out when that tortoise was first encountered, where it was first encountered, and get to know a little bit about that tortoise.

I’m Ann McLuckie in the Red Cliff Desert Reserve signing off on Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Jessie Bunkley
Text: Jessie Bunkley. Wildlife technician, Utah DWR/Graduate Teaching Assistant, BNR, Utah State University with assistance from Ann McLuckie, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources

Sources & Additional Reading

Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, https://www.redcliffsdesertreserve.com

Desert tortoise monitoring plan, Red Cliff Desert Reserve, Washington County, Utah (Publication / Utah Division of Wildlife Resources), Richard Fridell, 1998, https://www.amazon.com/tortoise-monitoring-Washington-Publication-Resources/dp/B0006R3LYO

World Turtle Database, EMYSystem Species Page: Gopherus agassizii, https://emys.geo.orst.edu/ (Search for “Desert Tortoise”)

Grover, Mark C., DeFalco, Lesley A, Desert Tortoise(Gopherus agassizii): Status-of-Knowledge, Outline With References, USDA, 1995, https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_int/int_gtr316.pdf

Desert Tortoise, Gopherus agassizii, Mojave National Preserve, https://www.mojavenp.org/Gopherus_agassizii.htm

Gopherus agassizii (COOPER, 1861), The Reptile Database, Peter Uetz and Jakob Hallermann, Zoological Museum Hamburg,
https://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Gopherus&species=agassizii

Desert Tortoise, Animal Species, Utah Division of Natural Resources, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=gopherus%20agassizii

Desert Tortoise Information and Collaboration, Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program, https://www.mojavedata.gov/deserttortoise_gov/index.html

January 31, 2013January 5, 2024

Desert Tortoises

Click for a larger view of an adult Desert Tortoise. Courtesy & Copyright 2009 Kevin Durso, Photographer — Adult Desert Tortoise
*Gopherus agassizii*
Courtesy & Copyright 2009
Kevin Durso, Photographer

Adult Desert Tortoise
*Gopherus agassizii*
Courtesy & Copyright 2009
Kevin Durso, Photographer

Adult & Juvenile Desert Tortoise
*Gopherus agassizii*
Courtesy & Copyright 2009
Andrew Durso, Photographer

Juvenile Desert Tortoise
*Gopherus agassizii*
Courtesy & Copyright 2009
Andrew Durso, Photographer

Tortoises are turtles that live their whole lives on land. Most tortoises are native to Africa and South America, but several are North American including the Desert Tortoise whose range extends to southwestern Utah. Their shells consist of enlarged scales called scutes. These scutes are tan, black, or dull orange, and etched with many concentric lines, like the growth rings of a tree. Desert Tortoises look like grizzled old men, even the Oreo-sized hatchlings, which over several decades will grow to football size.

Desert Tortoises mate in the spring, and a few months later, the female lays her 5 or 6 eggs in a funnel-shaped pit dug in the sand. The sex of the baby Desert Tortoises is determined by the sun’s heating rather than by genetics – cooler incubation yields males, hotter eggs produce females, with a mix of sexes developing at intermediate temperatures.

Desert Tortoises primarily eat the flowers of desert plants such as globemallow and threeawn. Because most desert plants only bloom briefly each spring, tortoises must eat a lot between April and June, although they can be active during all but the coldest months. Being toothless, they grind up their vegetarian fare using a specialized bone embedded in their jaw muscles. Like cows and other herbivores, they depend on microbes in their gut to digest the cellulose in their diet. Even more than food, water is precious to a Desert Tortoise. They have little to spare, sometimes going for months without urinating, but will pee defensively if handled. Resist the temptation to pick them up or you will rob the poor animal of its water supply for the entire year.

Once found throughout the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, Desert Tortoises are much less common than they were a century ago. They have not fared well with urbanization, highways, and off-road vehicle traffic. An upper respiratory tract disease can also be lethal, especially when crowded or stressed, as in captivity. Desert Tortoises are now protected by the US Endangered Species Act.

Today’s program was written by Andrew Durso of USU’s biology department.

Credits:

Theme: Courtesy & Copyright Don Anderson Leaping Lulu
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Andrew Durso and Kevin Durso
Text: Andrew Durso, https://www.biology.usu.edu/htm/our-people/graduate-students?memberID=6753

Additional Reading:

Gopherus agassizii, Turtle Conservancy, https://www.turtleconservancy.org/news/tag/Gopherus+agassizii

Grover, Mark C., DeFalco, Lesley A, Desert Tortoise(Gopherus agassizii): Status-of-Knowledge, Outline With References, USDA, 1995, https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/30627

Desert Tortoise, Gopherus agassizii, Mojave National Preserve, https://www.mojavenp.org/Gopherus_agassizii.htm

Gopherus agassizii (COOPER, 1861), The Reptile Database, Peter Uetz and Jakob Hallermann, Zoological Museum Hamburg,
https://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Gopherus&species=agassizii

Desert Tortoise, Species, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Department of Natural Resources, https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=gopherus%20agassizii

Desert Tortoise Information and Collaboration, Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program, https://www.mojavedata.gov/deserttortoise_gov/index.html

Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, http://www.redcliffsdesertreserve.com