Postcard from Bishkek

Who would have thought it … there is day dedicated to Turtles!

May 23rd is World Turtle Day and has been since 2000 and was established in order to bring attention to and promote efforts to help protect turtles and tortoises and their disappearing habitats around the world..  Although it is called World Turtle Day and marked around the globe in a variety of ways from dressing up to special lessons in schools, the day is sponsored by American Tortoise Rescue (ATR) which was founded as long ago as 1900 to provide for the protection of all species of Tortoise and Turtle.

Turtles are one of the oldest creatures on the planet – the earliest known turtles dating back to some 220 million years ago.  Technically, they are reptiles and are characterized by a bony shell that developed from their ribs and acts as a shield.  The name is fairly ambiguous – at least in English – and can be used to describe the whole Chelonia order of reptiles – including terrapins and tortoises – but in Britain it is used to refer only to sea dwelling species and not for tortoises.  (For the record: the term Toitoise usually refer to any land based chelonii that doesn’t swim and Terrapin to small, small edible hard shelled turtles that live in brackish waters). In some other languages – such as Spanish – this ambiguity is absent as each individual order has a separate name.

The largest turtle is a sea faring creature which can grow up to two meters in length and weighing over 900 kilograms whilst the smallest the smallest is typically less than 8 centimeters in length and weighs less than 140 grams,

Here in Kyrgyzstan, there is only one indigenous type of “turtle” known to exist,  Testudo horsfieldii, (commonly known as the Russian Tortoise, Four Toed Tortoise, Steppe Tortoise or Horsfield’s Tortoise - after the American naturalist Thomas Horsfield), although there are variations or subsepcies, (Testudo horsfieldii horsfieldii, (commonly known as the Central Asian Turtle), and Testudo horsfieldii kazakhstanica, otherwise known as the Kazakh Turtle ). 

Growing to about 15-25 cm in length, females tend to be larger than males. They are coloured from ruddy brown or black fading to a yellow between the scutes on the shell.  They have four toes on their feet – hence one common name for them is the Four Toed Tortoise.   

They are herbivores and can tolerate a wide range of temperatures. 

Like most turtles/Tortoises, they tend to be slow moving … and take life at a leisurely pace … although one source describes them as “feisty”, eager to explore and even burrow, the highest speed recorded seems to be have been about 5 kilometers an hour.  They make popular pets – one source even describing them as sociable around humans.   

In their natural environment they will hibernate in burrows during winter – although those kept indoors may not – and can live for about 40 or 50 years.

Although they are found throughout Central Asia, where they can live at elevations of up to 2400 meters above sea level, from Kazakhstan in the North, through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Xingjiang, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Iran, and Afghanistan down to Pakistan in the South, (and possibly also in Armenia and the Russian Federation)  they are listed in the Red Data Book as an endangered species.

 

Now, I have to admit that I have never seen one of these tortoises in Kyrgyzstan – at least, not in the wild.  Wolves – yes; snakes – yes; marmots – yes … and lots of other specimens of fauna … but not a tortoise.

The other say I was talking with some of the people in the office about plans for future postcards and I told them that today being World Tuerlew Day and how I was planning to write a postcard about the Testudo horsfieldii.  Ilona, our Tour Manager grew quite excited and told me how, last summer, she was out with her family and they stopped to take photographs in a field of poppies … and how her mother had suddenly shouted “Come here!  Look!” pointing to a tortoise on the ground.

Ilona reached for her phone and flicked through what looked like hundreds of photographs and stopped on one, showed it to me … and there it was a fine example of Horsefield’s Tortoise … she had several other photographs – but here’s just  one.

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For the record: Yesterday (22nd May) was also World Biodiversity Day - a United Nations–sanctioned international day for the promotion of biodiversity issues.  As with most such commemorative days, each year a theme is chosen to help event organizers focus their efforts and this year the theme was Island Biodiversity.

 

 

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