Attribution: Hara Woltz. "I took this photograph while researching ecological interactions between species and landscapes in the Galpagos. Winner: Conservation Ecology and BiodiversityBMC Ecology Image Competition 2012:BMC Ecology 2013, 13:6 doi:10.1186/1472-6785-13-6www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6785/13/6
About a foot long. I have only seen one other wild Desert Tortoise many years ago,so I was happy to see him/her. These guys are becoming very rare,like many desert reptiles, because they get run over, and taken home as pets. Now they are protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This population in Utah is their northeastern most, and they are particularly rare here.
This unusual turtle, with a thin, flexible shell, is native to Kenya and Tanzania, but is now rare due to habitat loss and the pet trade. San Diego Zoo.