Bolson Tortoises:
Biologists are in a slow and steady race to help North America’s largest and rarest Bolson tortoise species.
- Bolson tortoises is the largest and rarest land reptile, as well as the rarest of the six Gopherus species native to the North American Continent.
- Adult males are generally smaller than females in this species.
- The tortoise is a land-dwelling reptile that spends more than 95% of its time in a burrow that it constructs with its shovel-like front feet.
- All foraging, nesting and mating activities take place during the tortoise’s active season from roughly April to October.
- The average life span of a Bolson tortoise is not known but probably lies upward of a century.
- This species at present, is restricted to a relatively small area of the grasslands of north-central Mexico in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango, where it exists in disjunct sub-populations.
- Conservation status:
- IUCN: Critically Endangered
