Studies of the desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii
Citation
Angus M Woodbury, and Ross Hardy, Studies of the desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii: .
Summary
A stable colony of the desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii, that lives on the Beaver Dam Slope in extreme southwestern Utah, where the temperature extremes of the desert environment transcend the lethal limits of cold-blooded vertebrates provided material for the studies upon which this report is based. This is the first of a series of papers planned to deal with reptiles and their adaptations that are shown chiefly by their behavior patterns in the arid regions of interior western North America. Three trips into the area between April, 1930 and August, 1935 introduced the authors to some of the summer activities of tortoises. Additional work was initiated on November 28, 1936 when, after two days of searching, the discovery of the [...]
Summary
A stable colony of the desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii, that lives on the Beaver Dam Slope in extreme southwestern Utah, where the temperature extremes of the desert environment transcend the lethal limits of cold-blooded vertebrates provided material for the studies upon which this report is based. This is the first of a series of papers planned to deal with reptiles and their adaptations that are shown chiefly by their behavior patterns in the arid regions of interior western North America. Three trips into the area between April, 1930 and August, 1935 introduced the authors to some of the summer activities of tortoises. Additional work was initiated on November 28, 1936 when, after two days of searching, the discovery of the first hibernation dens gave clues to the tortoise winter behavior. On this day, twelve tortoises congregating in a horizontal tunnel in the gravelly bank of a wash, Which was later named Big Den (Fig. 25), were provided with recognition marks by placing red paint on different scutes of the carapace. This was the first of about 90' trips each of one to four days duration within the following 10-year period, during which 281 tortoises were individually marked and 812 recaptures were recorded, making a total of 1093 tortoise records from the area.
Published in Ecological Monographs, volume 18, issue 2, on pages 145 - 200, in 1948.