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Might have been fire as burning of field brush prior to planting is a regular practice here. However I think the injury was caused by a car. We saw a couple of juvenile leopard tortoises crushed by cars in the road unfortunately. They are quite common animals here.

We don’t know exactly how he got this injury. He is a wild tortoise that lives on our property and he has been like that for at least 10 years. Clearly he recovered from a major crushing injury.

For my friends on the Tortoise Forum: they say leopard tortoises are climbers and that is definitely true. My leopard climbs outdoor stairs several times a day which is about 12 steps to get to the top. He descends exactly as you would expect - cantilevering himself over the edge until he...

Dr During brumation from April through August, it's about 74 F during the day, and gets down to 42 F on the coldest nights. The marks on the carapace are clearly the result of some horrible crushing injury when it was a baby or young juvenile. None of the staff here know what happened exactly...

The dish he is drinking from is not his regular water dish. He has a drip plate for water under the garden faucet (see pic). We don't soak him and I've never seen him climb into his water plate. He is wild. He eats from a 2-acre walled garden so plenty of vegetation. We have never fed him.

The weather is completely dry from March until November. Not a drop of rain here in Harare, Zimbabwe. so my leopard has gone the full 4 months without water. He doesn’t dig a burrow, but rather pushes himself into some brushy vegetation.

My leopard tortoise just emerged from 4 months of brumation. I live in Zimbabwe and the tortoise is a wild tortoise that lives in our large garden. Since we’re in the southern hemisphere, our seasons are opposite from the US and fall weather begins in March and winter in June. I tracked the...

Thank you for the beautiful pics and the detailed explanation. This is wonderful for me, and I feel like these are my babies too!

and you are exactly right!

Thanks Tom. Actually I recently moved from Virginia to southern Africa (Zimbabwe) and this tortoise came with the house. She has never been under a heat lamp and lives outside year-round. The damage that you see on her carapace is the result of an old shell-crushing injury on her other side...

Thanks Yvonne! Actually I am temporarily living in Harare, Zimbabwe, where we have moved. So it doesn't snow or freeze here at all. She lives outside all the time. I don't feed her or water her. She lives off the extensive vegetation (including succulents) in the garden.

Hello friends! We moved into a house with a large yard and a resident Leopard Tortoise. The turtle has been here at least 7 years, and half her shell has suffered some sort of crushing damage (healed long ago). Any guesses as to the age of my turtle? She is healthy and happy and roams a 2-acre...