Gopher Tortoise Tortoise Survey -Monica Elskamp
I. Mapping
In order to complete this survey, each student spread out among the brush and moved in a straight line pinpointing each hole they came across (as seen in picture above)
Gopher Tortoise - Gopherus polyphemus
The gopher tortoise lives in dry, sandy uplands, such as oak-sandhills, scrub, pine flatwoods and coastal dunes of the southeastern United States. It is the only tortoise in the eastern part of the country. Human activities eliminated gopher tortoises from a significant portion of their historic range, but they still occur in Alabama, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia, with the majority of the remaining population in Florida.
II. Gopher tortoise Water color
III. Research
The Tortoise Hole
How They are Built
This remarkable tortoise excavates underground burrows that average 15 feet long and 6 feet deep. Burrows maintain a near constant temperature and humidity year-round, providing a safe haven from temperature extremes, predators and seasonal residents
Uniqueness
Burrow walls are compacted by the hard shell of the tortoise as it moves up and down the burrow. These burrows descend steeply, at angles of 20-40°, which means they have to be good climbers to get out of their deep burrows.
Benefits to Society
In terms of ecology, about 200-300 species of invertebrate and vertebrate animals cohabit these burrows (whether a gopher tortoise is in it or not) seeking refuge including several state and federally protected species, such as the
- gopher frog
- burrowing owl
- Florida pine snake
- Florida mouse
- Eastern indigo snake.
The gopher tortoise is a “keystone species” because so many other species depend on it for their survival – a decline in gopher tortoise numbers results in a decline in the other species that rely on its burrows.
VI. Questions
How long can a Gopher Tortiose live?
Adults require 16-21 years to mature and may live 40 years or longer.
How Do They Reproduce?
In the spring, gopher tortoises engage in mating behavior. The male visits the burrows of females in its colony. Communicating through head bobbing, shell nipping and rubbing of pheromones from scent glands on his legs leads to mating.
The female digs a nest at the mouth of her burrow or another sunny site where she buries about 6 ping-pong-ball-sized eggs that hatch about 3 months later. Eggs and hatchlings that escape being eaten by raccoons, skunks, dogs and other predators may spend the first winter in their mother's burrow or protected beneath fallen leaves and soil, eventually creating burrows of their own. Depending upon what latitude they live at, the tortoises will not become reproductively mature until they are 10 to 25 years old.
- Mating season: April - June
- Gestation: 80-100 days
- Clutch size: 3-15 eggs
What do GopherTortoise Eat?
Gopher tortoises are herbivores. They eat grasses, the flowers, fruits and leaves of herbaceous plants and shrubs like asters and legumes, daisies, clover, peas, cat briar, blueberries and palmetto berries, as well as stinging nettle, prickly pear cactus and pine needles. Because they get water from plants and dew, tortoises rarely drink water.
Of what value is the Gopher Tortoise to our ecosystem?
Everything affecting the gopher tortoise’s habitat affects the tortoise eventually affects all other organisms in its ecosystem. Efforts to save the gopher tortoise are really a manifestation of our desire to preserve intact, significant pieces of the biosphere.
We must preserve…the gopher tortoise and other species in similar predicaments, for if we do not, we lose a part of our humanity, a part of our habitat, and ultimately our world.”—Dr. George W. Folkerts, Auburn University, Alabama