The Heat is On: Desert Tortoises & Survival (Part 2 of 4)

Other formats and full transcript can be found at: gallery.usgs.gov/videos/197, gallery.usgs.gov/videos/198, gallery.usgs.gov/videos/199, and gallery.usgs.gov/videos/200
Part 2 of 4:
A thirty minute television program exploring the world of the Mojave Desert Tortoise. Witness a newborn tortoise hatching from its shell and male tortoises engaging in territorial battle. Follow scientists as they track tortoises across the desert. Learn about the many threats to tortoise survival. Watch as scientists use new technologies such as GPS and habitat modeling to sort out the factors causing tortoise decline and to help guide the effort to recover the species.
Tortoises have lived across this southwest landscape for thousand's of years. Their adaptation to its extreme harsh environment is amazing: surviving ground temperatures greater than 130 degress Fahrenheit and able to live a year, or even two, without water. But now, the desert tortoise is in danger of extinction.