Imagine having at least 350 of your closest friends and family members visiting your house. But first, you alone must find the site for your home, excavate the site and build it. Then, those friends start pouring in. They’re looking for a place to escape the heat or cold during extreme weather events, hunkering down during all future hurricanes and significant storms, escaping from fires, looking for food and having their young, all at your place. This is the life of the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus).
Their Latin name alone — “Gopherus,” means gopher or one that builds burrows, and “polyphemus” means many-famed or much-discussed — hinting at the importance of this species. They dig extensively elongated holes, or burrows, averaging 15 to 25 feet long.
The houseguests using these burrows may be visitors, commensal species — those who directly benefit from the gopher tortoises’ homes without harming their fossorial host — or obligates, those who cannot survive outside the burrow and, therefore, fully depend on the tortoise’s hospitality for their survival. These occupants include amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds and a myriad of insects. Among this large cohort who enjoy the benefits of the tortoises’ underground dwellings are several imperiled species, like the Florida mouse, gopher frog, Florida pine snake, eastern indigo snake and eastern diamondback rattlesnake.
In addition to gopher tortoise burrow systems benefiting wildlife, they also benefit the landscape by returning leached nutrients to the soil surface. This can lead to increased plant diversity, as the tortoises disperse seeds and protect some seeds from fires. Efforts to conserve gopher tortoises through their range in the southeastern United States are paramount.
Where Can I See These 60-Million-Year-Old Hosts?
Gopher tortoises live in the Southeastern Atlantic Coastal Plains from southern South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, west through Alabama, and Mississippi to eastern Louisiana.
Tortoises are the most abundant in central and north Florida and eastern and southern Georgia. Historically, the range of the gopher tortoise aligned with the range of the longleaf pine ecosystem in the southeastern U.S., but 97% of their range has been lost. Gopher tortoises presently live in communities that include upland sandhills, longleaf pine savannahs, coastal dunes and dry hammocks. These gracious hosts need open uplands where adequate sunlight reaches the forest floor to stimulate the growth of the herbaceous plants the tortoises eat. Their home also needs to be sufficiently warm for their eggs to incubate. The temperature range for gopher tortoise egg survival and the emergence of hatchlings is relatively narrow at 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit (27 to 32 degrees C).
Dry, sunny and open canopies are the formula for these long-lived reptiles. Yet, they are found at two seemingly different places: in the pine forest and at the beach in coastal dunes.
In the Pine Forest
There was once an extensive mosaic of longleaf pine sandhills across the Southeastern Coastal Plain. Pine sandhills are a favorite spot for gopher tortoises due to the widely spaced pine trees, which allow for plenty of sunlight to reach the dry soils covered with grasses, herbs and low shrubs. Beyond gopher tortoises, pine sandhills represent one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth, outside of the tropics. They host more than 30 threatened or endangered species and 68 species of migratory and native birds. And yet, because of the precipitous decline in acreage of longleaf pines, it is considered a critically endangered ecosystem.
To keep longleaf pine and tortoises happy, the system relies on fire. Historically, these fires would have been started by lightning strikes and burned the forest every two to10 years, at low intensity. These fires create an ideal forest floor for young plants, including longleaf pine seedlings and regenerating food for gopher tortoises. Gopher tortoise burrows provide seed refuge for some less fire-adapted plants and an “escape room” for snakes, red foxes, Bachman’s sparrow, Carolina wren, southern toads and other animals.
At the Beach
In Florida, you may spot a gopher tortoise when using a beach boardwalk to cross a large dune on your way to the ocean. Amongst the dune flowers, their elephantine feet are designed for digging, not swimming in the ocean like their marine counterparts, sea turtles. As dunes are bathed in sunlight and rarely have a canopy overgrowth due to the onslaught of wind and salt air from the ocean, they provide excellent habitat.
Gopher tortoises, in return, re-seed eroded areas caused by wind or storms in the coastal dune systems. They also provide homes for imperiled Florida mice, as well as host visiting marsh rabbits, black racers, mockingbirds and other coastal species.
Unfortunately, there are current risks to coastal populations of gopher tortoises due to sea level rise and subsequent inundation of burrows with salt water. These reptiles and their burrow inhabitants are at risk of further population declines due to the loss of coastal habitats from climate change and coastal development.
Deserving of Protection
Federal biologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in 2022 that in most of their current range, gopher tortoises do not need federal protections and decided not to list them as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Populations of tortoises west of the Mobile and Tombigbee Rivers — the western range of the species — are, however, currently listed as threatened.
The primary threat to the gopher tortoise species is the destruction of its preferred habitat through urbanization and development, particularly in uplands and coastal areas. You can help these unique animals by leaving any gopher tortoise and their habitat undisturbed. If you live near gopher tortoise habitat, voice the need to protect their home against development at local and state meetings.
We may not often host 350 friends and family in our home, but we can be good neighbors to the amazing animals with whom we share this planet.
Author
Katherine Sayler
Wildlife & Wild Places
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