Gopherus polyphemus
(Daudin, 1802)
Jasper Co., South Carolina. May 24, 1998.
It was late afternoon, and the sun was starting to slide towards the horizon. We were still basking in the glow of our first Eastern Diamondback, found crossing the road about an hour earlier. As we passed a ‘clear-cut’ area off to the right, Ken asked to stop and take a picture. Steve, Rick and I waited in the Blazer while Ken set up his tripod and wide angle lens to shoot the ugly remains of a timber harvest. “Hey!” he shouted, hearing crackling and crunching noises in the brush on the shoulder of the road. By the time the rest of us got out, he was hefting a large gopher tortoise. This specimen was a full-grown male, and his limbs were incredibly strong. We let him go after a bit and he trundled off into the pine woods.
My Flickr album for this species is here.
HerpMapper records for this species are here.
