{"id":4191,"date":"2010-02-21T20:53:31","date_gmt":"2010-02-22T01:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=4191"},"modified":"2010-02-21T21:14:28","modified_gmt":"2010-02-22T02:14:28","slug":"lone-male-tortoise-struts-vanderbilt-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=4191","title":{"rendered":"Lone Male Tortoise Struts Vanderbilt Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Chilly Vanderbilt Beach Gopher Tortoise: “I\u00c2\u00a0am<\/span> smiling”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>Winter\u00c2\u00a02010 has been a tough\u00c2\u00a0season for Florida reptiles and amphibians.\u00c2\u00a0 The January cold snap drove thousands of Atlantic and Gulf Coast sea turtles onto the beach, cold-stunned and helpless.\u00c2\u00a0 You may recall that the Turtle Journal team found a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle washed up with the high tide on Vanderbilt Beach on February 7th; see Turtle Journal Discovers Loggerhead Sea Turtle on Gulf Coast Beach<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Anoles and other lizards were equally stunned by the January chill and fell from trees like balls of hail onto the nature trails of Southwest Florida.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\"agtvb<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0Vanderbilt Beach Gopher Tortoise Burrow<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, gopher tortoises remained largely invisible during the Turtle Journal expedition to the Gulf Coast of Southwest Florida.\u00c2\u00a0 Buried deep into their burrows, dug into some of the priciest turtle property in the world, they didn’t even venture out on the few occasions that temperatures nosed into the low 70s.\u00c2\u00a0 Nighttimes in the 40s were sufficient to convince any correct thinking gopher tortoise to choose a comfortable snooze over a wind-swept promenade.<\/p>\n

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\u00c2\u00a0Male Gopher Tortoise Poses in Front of Stacked Beach Chairs<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet, there’s always one critter that doesn’t get the word … or thinks that the rules of cold-blooded life simply don’t apply to him.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, he’s the top banana, living life large in the shadow of the five-star Ritz Carlton Resort Hotel on Vanderbilt Beach.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Lone Male Gopher Tortoise Struts His Stuff<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sue Wieber Nourse surprised this male tortoise as he stiff-leggedly strolled from his protected borrow, across the dunes, down to the beach and then back again on a sunny afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 Not a tourist nor another gopher tortoise in sight.<\/p>\n

\"agtvb<\/a><\/p>\n

Quick Field Measure of Gopher Tortoise<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even without a\u00c2\u00a0high tech\u00c2\u00a0field kit, a well prepared researcher is always prepared to do a little science.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue gets her sneaker next to the gopher tortoise to obtain an ~ 12 inch straight-line carapace length.<\/p>\n

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Telltale Male Characteristics of Gopher Tortoise<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The plastron shows the male concavity in the rear and annual growth lines on each scute.<\/p>\n

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Gopher Tortoise Hangs at Opening of Camouflaged Burrow<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Having surveyed his empire and established his rightful position as alpha male on the Ritz Carlton beach, the gopher tortoise slid back into his well camouflaged and protected burrow, hanging out at the entrance … in case some equally adventuresome female tortoise had caught a glimpse of his demonstrable pre-eminence.\u00c2\u00a0 Hope springs eternal … even in the winter chill of Southwest Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chilly Vanderbilt Beach Gopher Tortoise: “I\u00c2\u00a0am smiling” Winter\u00c2\u00a02010 has been a tough\u00c2\u00a0season for Florida reptiles and amphibians.\u00c2\u00a0 The January cold snap drove thousands of Atlantic and Gulf Coast sea turtles onto the beach, cold-stunned and helpless.\u00c2\u00a0 You may recall that the Turtle Journal team found a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle washed up with the high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4191"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4217,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191\/revisions\/4217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}