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US forces are facing a wave of attacks across the Middle East as Iranian forces and their proxies test defences in response to Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip. On Tuesday, officials said that at least two dozen US troops had been hurt in a wave of attacks on their bases in Iraq and Syria over the past week. Tortoise understands that the attacks are more extensive than has been reported.

Mr. and Mrs. Pickles, partners for 27 years, recently welcomed three baby hatchlings named Dill, Gherkin, and Jalapeño, according to the Texas zoo's website. A 90-year-old tortoise native to Madagascar, the oldest animal at Houston Zoo, is now reportedly a first-time dad thanks to a zookeeper with a keen eye. Mr. Pickles moved to the Texas facility 36 years ago and partnered up with Mrs. Pickles 27 years into his residency, the Houston Zoo shared. The couple remained childless until recently when a worker noticed Mrs. Pickles' eggs at closing and quickly scooped them up to take them to the...

A new species of giant tortoise has been discovered in the Galapagos after DNA testing found animals living on one island had not yet been recorded, Ecuador's environment ministry said. Researchers compared the genetic material of tortoises currently living on San Cristobal with bones and shells collected in 1906 from a cave in the island's highlands and found them to be different. The 20th-century explorers never reached the lowlands northeast of the island, where the animals live today, and as a result, almost 8,000 tortoises correspond to a different lineage to what was previously thought. "The species of giant...

The giant tortoise, one of nature's vegetarians. Or is it? This video shows the astonishing moment an Aldabra giant tortoise hunts and kills a noddy tern chick.It's the first time this behaviour has ever been documented and changes what scientists thought they knew about the species. A study of the slow-speed hunt has been published in the scientific journal Current Biology."Everybody knows, or everybody thought they knew, that tortoises are vegetarians," he says.

In what amounts to perhaps the most unhurried act of animal predation ever caught on camera, researchers have filmed for the first time a giant tortoise slowly – ever so slowly – closing in for the kill. This drawn-out encounter – between a lumbering, almost leisurely giant tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea) and its grounded bird prey – is gruesome to watch. But it's also entirely transfixing. After all, we've never seen a tortoise 'hunt' anything before. Who knew these dawdling giants had it in them? VIDEO AT LINK...................... "I couldn't believe what I was seeing," says biologist Justin Gerlach from the...

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) -- Scientists in Ecuador's Galapagos islands are hoping to restore a tortoise species believed extinct since the 1800s. The Chelonoidis elephantopus lived on Floreana Island and was captured by seamen in large numbers for food during long journeys across the Pacific. The species is thought to have disappeared shortly after Charles Darwin's celebrated visit to the treasured archipelago. But a group of international scientists who collected 1,700 blood samples from tortoises on Isabel Island farther north during a research expedition in 2012 made a surprising discovery: 80 had genetic traces of the lost species. "This is a...

Repeat after Jeb Bush: He is not angry. Not even a tiny bit. Florida’s Republican former governor is happy — joyful even. And campaigning throughout Orlando Monday the merriest of presidential candidates reminded supporters over and over again that he is nothing like some of his churlish counterparts in the GOP primary. “Here’s the deal: I don’t have anger in my heart,” he told about 200 people at a community center in Maitland Monday evening. “We shouldn’t be scolding people. We shouldn’t be saying outrageous things that turns people off to the conservative message.” “I’m not a grievance candidate,” he...

These African spurred tortoises, also known as Sulcata tortoises, are popular as pets because they have a reputation for having a pleasant temperament. As seen in this video, they're also very helpful.

PALM SPRINGS – With giant windmills rotating behind her Tuesday, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced a sweeping land-use plan for energy development in California’s deserts that seemed more like a promise than a strategy. :snip: The plan is a state-federal collaboration five years in the making, she said. It encompasses some 22.5 million acres mostly in Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. It will create energy zones for large-scale solar, wind and geothermal projects on land considered of little importance to wildlife and other natural resources. These zones will be home to the projects that help the U.S. combat...

Six years ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid celebrated what he called a "love fest" of government support for the construction of a proposed 150,000-home community in the Nevada desert and the lobbyist-turned-developer behind it, Harvey Whittemore. Last week, a federal grand jury charged Mr. Whittemore with making illegal political contributions to Mr. Reid, a Democrat. Even before the indictment, Mr. Reid and other politicians had begun to distance themselves from Mr. Whittemore—long one of Nevada's most powerful lobbyists—by pledging to charity money to offset donations they had gotten from him. ~~snip~~ The allegations against Mr. Whittemore stem from a...

This is essentially Obama's approach to the economy

In the Sahara, the African spurred tortoise lives for about a century. Thanks to modern technology, one named Franky has a shot at immortality.“He gets about 10,000 viewers a month,” said Donnie Cook, the owner of Lou’s Pet Shop in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., where Franky, an easygoing 17-year-old, spends his days transmitting over the Internet a nonstop tortoise-eye view of the world. “We get people from at least 30 states, plus Italy, France.” A family in California has even sent the store $50 to keep Franky in lettuce.Why should the National Security Agency have all the fun?Franky’s fame illustrates...

It’s been protected from meddlesome hikers by the threat of prison time. But the pampered desert dweller now faces a threat from the very people who have nurtured it as BLM closes Vegas rescue center. LAS VEGAS — For decades, the vulnerable desert tortoise has led a sheltered existence. Developers have taken pains to keep the animal safe. It’s been protected from meddlesome hikers by the threat of prison time. And wildlife officials have set the species up on a sprawling conservation reserve outside Las Vegas. But the pampered desert dweller now faces a threat from the very people who...

(photo in article) How the turtle shell evolved has puzzled scientists for years, but new research sheds light on how their hard shells were formed. Scientists say the ancient fossil skeleton of an extinct South African reptile has helped bridge a 30 to 55-million-year gap. This ancestor of the modern turtle, Eunotosaurus, is thought to be around 260 million years old. It had significant differences to a recently found fossil relative. Eunotosaurus was discovered over a century ago but new research in the journal Current Biology has only now analysed its differences to other turtle fossils. Eunotosaurus africanus Skeleton...

A tortoise, who has been named after Adolf Hitler in honour of surviving the Blitz, is back from the dead -71 years after he survived a Nazi bomb attack in the Second World War. Carey and David Miller feared their dear pet was dead after he was found lifeless in their garden during a late snowfall while they were abroad, the Daily Express reported. The couple's grandson took Adolf, who is thought to be at least 100 years old, indoors but for the following month the reptile showed no sign of life. Carey, a children's author by profession, said that...

RICHARDSON (CBSDFW) – Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he’s not leaving the Presidential race anytime soon. “I’m the tortoise in this race,” Gingrich says. “I’ll just keep coming forward and I’m still here.” Before 75 supporters in a packed Richardson restaurant along Central Expressway Monday afternoon, Gingrich sounded upbeat. He told the town hall meeting, “I certainly felt a lot more encouraged by donors than discouraged by the elite media.” But he’s facing an uphill climb. Jack Fink: “Mitt Romney is on his way to the nomination, mathematically you can’t win, so what’s your rationale for staying in...

Stubborn does not come close to describing the desert tortoise, a species that did its evolving more than 220 million years ago and has since remained resolutely prehistoric. At the $2.2-billion BrightSource Energy solar farm in the Ivanpah Valley, the tortoise brought construction to a standstill for three months when excavation work found far more animals than biologists expected. BrightSource has spent $56 million so far to protect and relocate the tortoises, but even at that price, the work has met with unforeseen calamity: Animals crushed under vehicle tires, army ants attacking hatchlings in a makeshift nursery and one small...

I'm out mountain biking at the local nature preserve here in Garland, TX, and I find this monster lumbering down the trail, munching on grass and weeds. Gotta be either an escapee or another abandoned animal at Rowlett Creek Preserve. I sent his pix to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and they identified him as Geochelone sulcata, native to Africa. He's about twice the size of my bike helmet, prolly 30 lbs. or so I'd guess. TPWD said he'd never survive here with north Texas winters but he has been spotted in the same general vicinity since last year,...

The famous Galapagos giant tortoises could be at serious risk from mosquitoes that have developed a taste for reptile blood, experts have warned. Scientists say increased tourism means there is now a greater risk of a disease-carrying insect being transported to the islands. Local mosquitoes that have evolved to feed on reptiles could then pick up the diseases and pass them on. Galapagos wildlife has little immunity to mosquitoes due to their isolation. The study was published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 'Looking for blood' The world's largest living tortoises are an icon of...

Paleontologists say a 75-million-year-old turtle fossil uncovered in southern Utah has a clutch of eggs inside, making it the first prehistoric pregnant turtle found in the United States. At least three eggs are visible from the outside of the fossil, and ...studying images taken from a CT scan in search of others inside. the turtle was probably about a week from laying her eggs ...