Turtles

Turtles - Testudines

There are about 300 species of turtles. Some turtles will fit in the palm of your hand and some can weight over 500lbs.
right-top: Red Footed Tortoise (Chelonoidis carbonaria)
right-bottom: Florida Softshelled Turtle (Apalone ferox) *note - are ill-tempered, will bite!

When Thousand Needles flooded with Cata, it was so sad to see the bodies of the land tortoises floating there. But it does fairly represent that tortoises are land based and so cannot swim. And while "turtle" and "tortoise" can sometimes be used interchangeably, turtles tend to have aquatic tendencies where as tortoises are strictly terrestrial.

Galapagos and Aldabra Tortoises are pretty cool to work with and each individual has their own personality. This guy here really liked to be scratched. There was another one, named Gilgamesh, who was ill-tempered and would follow you (slowly) around trying to bite you.

Galapagos Tortoises (Chelonoidis nigra) come from the Galapagos Islands, an island chain in the Pacific, off the coast of Ecuador.

Aldabra Tortoises (Aldabrachelys gigantea) are the other species of giant tortoise and come from a small group of coral islands in the Indian Ocean, north of Madagascar.

Yes, they are doing exactly what you think they are doing. Tortoises are surprisingly horny and will breed fairly often, even if it is mostly males. Their vocalizations are loud and can be heard across the zoo.

random note: these guys live for over 100 years and possibly for 200.

Sea Turtle Mount

I fished for about two weeks straight from fishing pools in Northrend when Wrath came out. When you tap the space bar he gets scared and pulls all limbs back into his shell.
* for actual sea turtles see below.
* also, those two weeks of fishing were absolutely NOT because I was stuck at home with an almost broken arm, that definitely did NOT happen while I was LARPing, Star Wars LARPing...yeah, I was a Jedi.

Freshwater Aquatic Turtles

Red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans)

baby turtles!

Little turtle!

Land tortoises

Radiated Turtle (Geochelone radiata) hatchling feasting on some kale, carrots and squash.

Kicking Turtles

I want to know who came up with this quest and hug them. I mean it is ludicrous and fun. *do not kick turtles in real life. They have hard shells and you could: A. break your toe trying to kick them or B. possibly crack the shell, probably killing the turtle. p.s. turtles also bite.

Sea Turtles

There are 5 species of sea turtles and all of them are endangered. I think the ones in-game are based off of Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta).
More on Sea Turtles here!