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i went camping in joshua tree national park this weekend and on our hike this afternoon we came across this beautiful desert tortoise shell. all that was left was the partially cracked shell that was almost completely sun-bleached. it was sad thinking this poor tort had to die but it was neat to see evidence of them living out there in the wild! also, notice the awesome barrel cactus!

very cool find!!!!!

Wow Josh, Nice pic and a great find thanks for sharing.

That's cool. My husband has a collection of box turtle shells that he has found over the years. Most times though the plastron is not there.

i wanted to take it with me but i had to respect National Park rules...
plus, it's better off out there where someone else can stumble upon it and appreciate the harsh habitat those torts live in.

I think I have a couple of baby desert tort shells that were given to me about 25 yrs ago. I haven't seen them in a few years, I must have put them away in a good spot. Now I'm gonna have to tear my house apart to find them and take pics.

keith, that'd be awesome!
you probably can't tell the scale in my photos but that shell is about a foot long

Josh, I did figure it about that size. With the size of the rocks and grass/weeds, it doesn't look small.

OK, I found them! Here you go.

those are awesome shells, keith! again, sad that those poor torties had to die but those are cool artifacts

Yep, they were just little ones. Any info as to what the mortality rate is? How many actually make it to adult size?

The shell with the hole in the top exhibits the classic raven predation signature. The ravens typically eat each of the limbs and the head, then poke a hole through the shell to eat the internal tissues. The other juvenile tortoise pictured here may also have been preyed on by a raven, though the shell may have been too hard to punch a hole through.

chelonologist Wrote:The shell with the hole in the top exhibits the classic raven predation signature. The ravens typically eat each of the limbs and the head, then poke a hole through the shell to eat the internal tissues. The other juvenile tortoise pictured here may also have been preyed on by a raven, though the shell may have been too hard to punch a hole through.

Now that I take a closer look, you can see some trauma to the shell of the larger tortoise. It looks to me as if a raven tried poking through the shell of this tortoise but was unsuccessful in breaking through. It did manage to damage the laminae and expose the bone, though. I believe those marks are the result of the raven hammering the shell with its beak.

josh Wrote:i went camping in joshua tree national park this weekend and on our hike this afternoon we came across this beautiful desert tortoise shell. all that was left was the partially cracked shell that was almost completely sun-bleached. it was sad thinking this poor tort had to die but it was neat to see evidence of them living out there in the wild! also, notice the awesome barrel cactus!

i do a lot of rock climbing out in Joshua Tree. what area did you find this shell at? is there any particular area where there's more DT activity? climbing season is coming up and i'm hoping to see one out there! it's probably highly doubtful, but would be awesome!!!