Hares of Oakland, be forewarned: The world’s fastest tortoise has screeched into town.
The newest residents at the Oakland Zoo are a trio of the swiftest – and oddest – tortoises in the world.
The gold- and black-speckled reptiles can scurry up to 10 mph. They’re so good at scampering from predators they don’t even bother tucking their heads into their shells.
“Oh my God, they’re pretty cute,” said zoo visitor Jessica Pattison of Antioch, whose 2-year-old son Israel was fixated on the 6-inch reptiles, called pancake tortoises because they’re only 1 1/2 inches thick and like to stack themselves like, well, pancakes. “But what are they again?”
In the world of tortoises, pancake tortoises are among the strangest. While other tortoises can be a tad lethargic, pancake tortoises have longer, muscular legs and have no trouble running, climbing treacherous terrain or flipping over when circumstances turn them on their backs.
“It’s hard to say any tortoise is agile, but these guys are pretty good at moving,” said Oakland Zoo keeper Jason Loy, who cares for the tortoises and named them Mrs. Butterworth, Maple and Flap Jack.
Pancake tortoises are also very social, living in colonies among the rocky outcroppings of Tanzania and Kenya. They’ve been known to stack themselves 10 high, a habit that helps them cram into rock crevices when predators are around.
Mrs. Butterworth, a 16-year-old female, Flap Jack, a 23-year-old male and his daughter Maple, 3, came from the Bronx Zoo in August and have been gradually introduced to their new roommates, a pair of plated lizards.
The Bronx Zoo apparently had a surplus stack of pancake tortoises, so it shipped a few to Oakland, which was looking for a few reptiles to live with the plated lizards, who needed company after the recent death of the enclosure’s third plated lizard.
To the extent that reptiles can express joy, the plated lizards seem thrilled with their new colleagues. On Wednesday, one of the lizards crept on a rock above Maple and Mrs. Butterworth and sat. And blinked. And sat some more.
“It’s pretty exciting to have a new species here,” said Julie Hartell-DeNardo, who oversees reptiles at the zoo. “This is a pretty unique tortoise and these three have been a lot of fun.”