The Endangered Wildlife Trust highlights an awesome poster featuring the 13 species of tortoises and encourages South Africans to take part in identifying them in the wild.
South Africa (11 September 2023) – The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) is celebrating a new poster by Gary Kyle Nicolau that highlights the 13 species of tortoise in South Africa. The detailed poster is being sold to raise funds for a student research grant working on African Tortoises through the Herpetological Association of Africa.
As part of the new poster announcement, EWT is encouraging South Africans to become citizen scientists by sending in their sightings of tortoise sightings, especially for the Speckled and Karoo Dwarf tortoises.
“South Africa hosts 13 species of tortoises – which is higher than anywhere else in the world. Ten of those species are found in the drylands alone. The Drylands Conservation Programme is working to conserve habitat that is known to contain two of our most threatened tortoises – namely, the Speckled Dwarf Tortoise (Chersobius signatus) and Karoo Dwarf Tortoise (Chersobius boulengeri).
We encourage the public to report any sightings of tortoises, with particular focus on Speckled and Karoo Dwarf tortoises.
Kindly forward any sighting information to ewt@ewt.org.za
Sightings should include a photograph of the tortoise (avoid handling and/or relocating) and GPS coordinates (where coordinates are not known, please note the nearest town/city).”
The poster which can be seen on the EWT post here, showcases the patterns and shapes found on the shells of each of the tortoises, as well as where in South Africa they can be spotted.
You can find out more about the poster here.
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