This odd turtle is called the St. Catherine’s wheel turtle (Heosemys spinosus), also known as the cogs-wheel turtle and the spiny turtle. The adult turtles don’t have the spines. (NO!) Why is it called a St. Catherine’s wheel turtle?
KINGDOM OF CREATURES STORY TIME!!
St. Catherine of Alexandria (282 – 305 AD) lived in Alexandria, Egypt. One of her acquaintences was the emperor of Rome, Maxentius, who was persecuting Catholics. She told him to stop at once, and you know what? He sentenced her to be tied to a wheel with knives on it, and have the wheel spun so she got cut up. It was a very sad death that she did not deserve at all, but thankfully she is a saint. Her feast day is November 25.
Her wheel looks kind of like this similar torture device at a museum:
Maxentius = Biggest jerk in history besides King Henry VIII.
Anyway, this turtle is an Asian species, ranging in Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
There have been three successful captive incubations of the St. Catherine’s wheel turtle’s eggs, taking up to 145 days to hatch. These bizarrely cute turtles are completely herbivorous in nature, though many captive species eat meat.
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| How does Ai does dis? |
These are all Kleinmann’s elf tortoises (Pseudotestudo leithii), so small and cute that it can hardly eat a grape and also it’s critically endangered and can go extinct in the wild any day now! Yay!
“Yay”!? *Slaps self in face.*
I would seriously die a thousand deaths if the Kleinmann’s elf tortoise went extinct. LOOK at it! At just 10 centimeters long, this is the tiniest tortoise that has ever lived in the Northern Hemisphere. They range in color from dark brown to pale golden to pink (yay!) to ivory to a dull yellow (ugh!).
The strangest thing about Kleinmann’s elf tortoises is that…they have a mating song. It sounds like a mourning dove (Zenaida macroura)—coo-OO, oo-oo-oo—gradually fading away depressingly. :(
When it’s scared it hides in its shell ^_^ I love these things. They deserve millions of huggles. :3
