# Gopher Tortoise (Southeast GA)



## Silver Britches (Aug 8, 2016)

Dad and I were riding through the woods yesterday and came up on 2 of them. The one in the first pic was hauling tail up the road towards us. I mean he was getting it for a turtle! Right after I seen the first one, I spotted the second just a few feet up the road. The second one went in the burrow and was too shy to come out for a pic.


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## wvdawg (Aug 8, 2016)

Nice captures!  They have that burrow well cleared!  Thanks for sharing!


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## pdsniper (Aug 9, 2016)

When I was growing up as a kid in Florida we had them on my family's property in Jupiter Fla it was so exciting when we saw one


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## joey1919 (Aug 9, 2016)

I keep hearing that they're threatened or endangered but we've got more than you can shake a stick at around here.


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## GAGE (Aug 9, 2016)

That is pretty cool.


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## rip18 (Aug 9, 2016)

Neat to see!

I can remember when they were a whole lot more common than they are now.  There are areas with good numbers still, but those areas seem to be shrinking & the density in some of those areas going down.

If you want to see a REALLY rare critter, look above the tortoise's left leg in the second image, and you'll see a "gopher tortoise tick".  As far as I know, it's the largest tick in the southeastern US (and it doesn't get on humans).  The biggest one I ever saw was a good bit larger than a nickel, but not as big as a quarter.


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## Silver Britches (Aug 10, 2016)

rip18 said:


> Neat to see!
> 
> I can remember when they were a whole lot more common than they are now.  There are areas with good numbers still, but those areas seem to be shrinking & the density in some of those areas going down.
> 
> If you want to see a REALLY rare critter, look above the tortoise's left leg in the second image, and you'll see a "gopher tortoise tick".  As far as I know, it's the largest tick in the southeastern US (and it doesn't get on humans).  The biggest one I ever saw was a good bit larger than a nickel, but not as big as a quarter.



I saw that, but I thought it was an old brown live oak leaf caught up in there. I have never heard of them getting ticks, very interesting.

Here's a crop of the larger version of that image.


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## rip18 (Aug 11, 2016)

There's one on his nose too.  The nose seems to be a common place for this tick to get - thinner skin, I guess.

Cool stuff!  Thanks for sharing!


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## rollingwiththeflow (Aug 12, 2016)

Nice pics. I had one burrowed on my hunting land in Burke County for one season. Wasn't there the next. I would like to know what happened to him. Maybe he moved? I wonder if they have natural predators?


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