Gopher Tortoises Do Battle

Fighting is not the first thing that comes to mind regarding Gopher Tortoises, but they do tussle, often over mates or even burrows!
This video shows two male tortoises doing battle in the field next to the airport control tower ruins at Weedon Island. George Heinrich, a local tortoise expert, noted that the two animals are males because they have a “gular horn” which is an elongated part of the plastron or lower shell. They seem to be using their gular horns to push each other around and try to flip each other over. Although it does seem like the one tortoise helps the other one up after flipping him over, that’s probably not intentional. Instead, he was keeping up the fight! The plastron of the tortoise on his back is concave, which is another sign of a male tortoise. These two tortoises were duking it out on a windy day in early March.