Keep these fun facts and tips handy for your next time a turtle crosses your path:

• Not your mother’s apron!  Gopher tortoises make their nests in aprons, or mounds of loose sand located at the entrance of burrows.

• The Alligator snapping turtle possesses a worm-shaped appendage on the tip of its tongue (a vermiform), which it uses to lure fish. 

• ‘Cooter’ is derived from the African word for turtles, kuta.

• Neither helping nor harming its so called “landlord,” a commensal is an animal that takes advantage of gopher tortoise burrows.   

• The Diamondback terrapin derives its name from the diamond-like patterns on its top shell. 

• The oldest recorded tortoise was ‘Tui Malila,’ a 188-year-old Madagascar radiated tortoise.

• The name ‘terrapin’ comes from the Algonquian Indian word for aquatic or brackish water turtles, torope.

• Which one’s which?  River Cooters and Florida Cooters may look the same, but a River Cooter has a backward C-shaped marking on its shell.

Resources for this article have been provided by the Gopher Tortoise Council, the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.