Here:
Top row left to right: eastern box turtle, pancake tortoise and Bell’s hingeback tortoise.
Middle row left to right: radiated tortoise, Florida box turtle and Burmese star tortoise.
Bottom row left to right: spotted turtle, Bourret’s box turtle and European pond turtle.
For me, the bottom row is a bit of an anti-climax, but the top two rows are amazing. Blog and learn. Although, what I have not yet learned is why it is useful for turtles and tortoises to look like this. It surely can’t be camouflage, can it? Mimicry of something very scary to predators? But who are the predators of turtles and tortoises? Big bastard birds presumably. But what do I know? In the meantime: Wow.
Found, inevitably, on Twitter, via the Twitter feed, equally inevitably, of Steve Stewart-Williams.