tortoise dimensions for children's author

[yellowbirchpress]

Hi,

I'm an author and I am working on a novel for young readers that will include fictional giant tortoises. They will be dinosaur size or larger but I would like them to have appropriate tortoise proportions when I describe the size of their Carapace, foot prints, claw length, tail length, eye diameter, head and mouth.

do you know of anyplace that i can find relative dimensions for real giant tortoises that I can then multiply?

If you go to www.borealtroll.com you can see one of the fictional "mountain tortoises" that I featured in a previous field guide. the tortoise is pictured in the middle photo on the book cover. The tortoises in my new book will be significantly larger... oh I just saw I can add an image, I'll do that, you can still check out the web page if you want to see more photos of other curious creatures.

Thanks for any information or direction you can give me

Ã¥ke larson

yellow birch press

 

[Maggie Cummings]

You aren't making these giant tortoises have bad dispositions like dinosaurs are you? I have taken tortoises to schools at various times for demos and so the children can learn about tortoises and turtles and I have noticed that the kids are afraid of the torts and think they are mean and I have tried hard to dispel that impression. My son and I have recently taken my big Sulcata to several different classes and it distresses me to see how the kids think that tortoises are mean..

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Ake: It is interesting to see the makings of a children's story in its early time. I can't really say much about dimensions of tortoises, however, there are quite a few "correct" garden statues. Maybe one of those would be helpful to you. My 100lb Sulcata is appx. 27 inches from front to back (in a straight line), and appx. 24" from side to side. Its hard to measure the length of the legs because when you get that close, the tortoise pulls the legs in. So my best suggestion is for you to find a place that sells garden statuary and go see one of the giant tortoises made out of cement. They are very life-like, and made to scale.

Yvonne

 

[krissy2288]

Thats cool that your making a book...for the dimentions you could go on google look up the skeliton of a tortoise print it out and put it on a grid, i think that would work...when you make the book you should post pictures on here, that would be cool.

 

[yellowbirchpress]

Hi,

These are some good back up ideas, I think I could get some of the info I need from the skeleton idea, and some from the statuary. I live in the middle of no where, I bet I'd have to drive 4 hours to find a place that sells a tortoise statue... so be it!

to answer your question maggie3fan, the tortoises won't have bad dispositions as such. They will not be godzilla hostile, but they will be huge and do some damage simply by moving around. One of the key elements to the book will be that things that may seem scary are really just doing what they have to do to survive and it's up to us to learn when to jump in to help and when to let them have the space they need to live. The book is in the very early stages, there are many things yet to be decided.

Thanks for your comments and I'd still appreciate any more specific direction anyone might have.

-Ã¥ke larson