The following short article and references are meant to raise awareness. Unfortunately, there are many people who have no or little idea about tortoises. There are endangered tortoise species, there is also Lonesome George to shake humanity and how many of you don’t have tortoises as pets? Enjoy and feel free to fill in the gaps and provide further references for others.
Tortoises or land turtles are land-dwelling reptiles of the family of Testudinidae, order Testudines. Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise has both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton. Tortoises can vary in size from a few centimetres to two meters. Tortoises tend to be diurnal animals with tendencies to be crepuscular depending on the ambient temperatures. They are generally reclusive and shy.
Beside the common knowledge on tortoise, here’s a few things about the religious symbolism of the tortoise. In Hinduism, Kurma (Sanskrit: कà¥à¤°à¥à¤®) was the second avatar of Vishnu. Like the Matsya Avatara also belongs to the Satya yuga. Vishnu took the form of a half-man half-tortoise, the lower half being a tortoise. He is normally shown as having four arms. He sat on the bottom of the ocean after the Great Flood. A mountain was placed on his back by the other gods so that they could churn the sea and find the ancient treasures of the Vedic peoples.
Reference sites:
Turtle Stuff
Reptile’s Web
American Tortoise Rescue