Gopher tortoises can be up to forty feet long and have strong, scaly legs that are like alive garden trowels. Amanda was also helping rehab injured tortoises for months before releasing them back into the wild. She started learning about their burrows and how so many other animals will share their burrows. The gopher tortoise is considered a keystone species because of its important role in ecosystems.
We're bringing back one shell of an episode with today's encore. What's a tortoise? What's a turtle? Why do they live so dang long? What's up with their junk? Wildlife biologist and testudinologist Amanda Hipps studies gopher tortoises and dishes about turtle nomenclature, cliques, dicks, behavior, burrows, evolution, habitats and more. If you don't dig tortoises yet, you're about to fall deep into a turtle tunnel in love with them.
Follow Amanda Hipps on Instagram or Twitter
This week's donation was made to AlongsideWildlifeFoundation.org
Sponsors of Ologies
Transcripts and bleeped episodes
Smologies (short, classroom-safe) episodes
Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month
OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, masks, totes!
Follow @Ologies on Twitter and Instagram
Follow @AlieWard on Twitter and Instagram
Sound editing by Steven Ray Morris & Jarrett Sleeper
Transcripts by Emily White of The Wordary
Website by Kelly R. Dwyer
Theme song by Nick Thorburn