Turtling

:> I found this little guy in our back yard. He's a gopher tortoise, an endangered breed of shell-backs. There is a 'hatching season' for them, but /when/ they hatch within that time is due to environmental factors. So all the tortoise eggs in the dens hatch within one day of each other. Lots of little babies invade overnight! (I went to check and, sure enough, I found shell fragments at three different dens).

Our cat was batting him up and down the porch when I got him. We thought he was dead, so I sadly put him out in the flowerbed- but then, lo and behold, he moved! :3

Since he's an endangered species, I can't keep him- but he seems to like our yard because I've seen him making his tiny-stepping little way through the grass several times since.