Range and Habitat
The African spurred tortoise is native to the Sahara Desert and the Sahel, a transitional ecoregion of semi-arid grasslands, savannas, and thorn shrublands found in the countries of Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan In these arid regions the tortoise excavates burrows in the ground to get to areas with higher moisture levels spending the hottest part of the day in these burrows. This is known as aestivating. Burrows may average 30 inches in depth; some dig tunnel systems extending 10 feet or more underground.
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