Discovery
The Bolson tortoise was discovered only in 1959. The legend is that a group of biologists working in the Bolsón de Mapimí were at a ranch and saw chickens eating out of a large tortoise shell. They inquired about the origin of the shell and the locals responded by saying that it was, “la tortuga grande del desierto,” the big turtle of the desert.
In 1979 the 340,000 hectare Mapimi Biosphere Reserve was created to protect the Bolson Tortoise and other unique flora and fauna of the Bolsón de Mapimí. Despite this designation, cattle ranching and mining still occur in the Reserve. Whether this is detrimental to the tortoise is not known.
Read more about this topic: Bolson Tortoise
Famous quotes containing the word discovery:
“That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“Next to the striking of fire and the discovery of the wheel, the greatest triumph of what we call civilization was the domestication of the human male.”
—Max Lerner (b. 1902)
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)