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:
“The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)