WordNet
n. burrowing tortoise of the arid western United States and northern Mexico; may be reclassified as a member of genus Xerobates [syn: Gopherus agassizii]
Wikipedia
The desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii and Gopherus morafkai) are two species of tortoise native to the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico and the Sinaloan thornscrub of northwestern Mexico. G. agassizii is distributed in western Arizona, southeastern California, southern Nevada, and southwestern Utah. The specific name agassizii is in honor of Swiss-American zoologist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz. Recently, on the basis of DNA, geographic, and behavioral differences between desert tortoises east and west of the Colorado River, it was decided that two species of desert tortoises exist: the Agassiz's desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) and Morafka's desert tortoise ( Gopherus morafkai). G. morafkai occurs east of the Colorado River in Arizona, as well as in the states of Sonora and Sinaloa, Mexico. This species may be a composite of two species.
The new species name is in honor of the late Professor David Joseph Morafka of California State University, Dominguez Hills, in recognition of his many contributions to the study and conservation of Gopherus.
The desert tortoises live about 50 to 80 years; they grow slowly and generally have low reproductive rates. They spend most of their time in burrows, rock shelters, and pallets to regulate body temperature and reduce water loss. They are most active after seasonal rains and are inactive during most of the year. This inactivity helps reduce water loss during hot periods, whereas winter hibernation facilitates survival during freezing temperatures and low food availability. Desert tortoises can tolerate water, salt, and energy imbalances on a daily basis, which increases their lifespans.
Usage examples of "desert tortoise".
There was a species of desert tortoise, which was distinguished from a turtle somehow or other (the general didn't have a clue), and which soldiers had to protect.
Perhaps fortified by the wine and burdened by only half a plate of cheese, he was on his feet markedly faster than a desert tortoise extracting itself from a dry slough of treacherous sand.
Kossil's face seemed to withdraw into the black hood, like a desert tortoise's into its shell, sour and slow and cold.
Kandros was a slight, leathery man, not quite forty, but with the eye-wrinkles of a desert tortoise, the wrinkles of eyes that had studied two eventful decades' worth of encampments, fortifications, seigeworks and battles.
A sunburned dome of stiff ribbed fabric that looked as dry and brown and tough as the shell of a desert tortoise.