I saw this in someone’s yard in Pismo Beach this weekend. It was huge. I’d say about 24" long. I googled turtles (images) and found some likely candidate from exotic locales but I’m not enough of a turtle person to make a positive ID. This is the only pic I took.
Decades ago I tortoise sat a friend’s Sulcata tortoise. Looks similar.
Identifying turtles is almost impossible unless they are wearing their bandanas
I’m a-guessing African spur thigh tortoise.
Was this thing captive or free roaming?
Yep, aka Sulcata.
The one that I pet sat would stand and eat a huge bowl of salad stuff, like a dog eating.
Captive in the sense that it was within the perimeter fencing of the house property. But it was free to roam the entire property apparently. It had just demolished a watermelon. It was surprisingly animated for a turtle.
Did it seem to be balancing on tippytoes on the front legs while stepping flat on the soles of its back feet? That’s what the Sulcata that lives in our biology lab (long story) does; I don’t know how other tortoises walk but it looks to my inexperienced eyes like a quite distinctive gait.
Turtles are actually very active. My family has a little Reeves turtle and he loves to run around and explore (inside, he’s not allowed outside). He’ll demolish food as well. He’s a chubbo so can only fit either his back or his front inside his shell, not both.
How does that… I don’t even… say what??
Sorry, what I said was pretty vague. If he wants to pull his body inside his shell he can either pull his front end in or his back end. He can’t completely pull his entire body in to hide because he’s too fat. The vet says as long as he’s happy and can otherwise function normally it’s not a big deal since he doesn’t have any predators obviously.