I found a three inch turtle in my front lawn, near the siderwalk and driveway. Don't ask me how it got there, 'cause I sure don't know. When I picked him up to put him(?) in a seemingly safer place, all four of his little legs kept on moving.

So, I put some water out for him near my front steps, and figured he previously must have been getting along OK without my help, so he would still do so.

However, the next thing I know, he disappeared. MY neighbor suggested he would probably get cut to pieces the next time my lawn was mowed. (Ugh)

Was it a box turtle or was it a water turtle ?

Probably someone's pet. We had a 10-inch tortouse, which kept burrowing under our fence and wandering into our back yard, for many years. The owners moved away and took it with them.

Turtles can move around better than you think. If you have a little patch of woods nearby, he probably came from there. I maintain a feeding station by my back woods, and occasionally see turtles there of various sizes. I keep a flat dish of water out there for them, and one day I saw a turtle in the middle of the dish. I don't know if he was getting a drink or just cooling off.

Tortoise vs hare ~



OPie ruins turtle's chances ~



congratulations ~



ʕ•̫͡•ʕ*̫͡*ʕ•͓͡•ʔ-̫͡-ʕ•̫͡•ʔ*̫͡*ʔ

You can just give us a "general answer"; i.e. Southeast, Deep South, West Coast, etc. That will likely indicate whether it's someone's escaped pet or a native species. There are lots of possibilities.

The next question is whether it's a turtle or a tortoise; the former are semi-aquatic while the latter are terrestrial...

SLC
Resisting the temptation to insert Mitch McConnell joke...

We get turtles in our creek out back. The Oregon native river turtles, and we saw a non-native red eared slider one day.

When I was in 5th grade I had a box turtle, which I gave to a friend after having it for a while.

One day she came to school and told me it "ran away" when she was out in the yard and wasn't looking at it, and she couldn't find it. I wondered how it could do that, but they can move pretty fast when they want to.

I live in the South-West of California, in L.A. county.

The only other turtle that has shown up near my front porch steps, was one owned by a neighbor--which I carried back to it's owner. This one was about 12" long, and 3" tall.

A neighbor who lives behind me had a big turtle, and it got run-over when they backed out of the driveway. It's shell was cracked, but inside it still seemed to be OK.

Certainly, I don't know if turtles "speak" enough to make an "ouch" sound.

---

Also, didn't a turtle and Bugs Bunny have a race, and Bugs kept running circles around the tortes, but was so busy acting superior, that he lost the race to the tortes which had just kept plodding along.

PS: Isn't there a message to us all in there somewhere?

Yep. Keep clear of driveways!

Is the Sonoran desert tortoise or Morafka's desert tortoise, Gopherus morafkai Murphy et al., 2011[7]

I was just reviewing the nomenclature, and as you can see it's been revised. Wiki now lists six species in the genus Gopherus...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopherus

>>In July 2011, researchers decided on the basis of DNA and behavioral data that the Sonoran and Mojave populations of the desert tortoise were distinct species.[7] As such, there are currently six recognized species in the genus Gopherus...

Based on the size, I'm doubtful this one was a desert tortoise, so it's likely it was someone's "escapee." There are lots of possibilities.