World Turtle Day®

World Turtle Day® 2026 is May 23 — and this year is BIG. New website. New merch. 26 years of shellebrating the most ancient survivors on Earth. 61% of turtle species are threatened. That's why we keep going. → worldturtleday.org #WorldTurtleDay #Shellebrate

Ready for May 23? Order your World Turtle Day® gear by April 23 and save 10% using code TURTLE10 worldturtleday.org/shop-products/

Tortoises are being loved to death. And the pet trade is part of the problem. Many tortoises are still captured from the wild, removing them from ecosystems that depend on them. Please don’t support it. Adopt. Don’t buy. Look for a local rescue or resources on our new hub: bit.ly/4my139l

World Turtle Day® is almost here Get ready to shellebrate 🐢 Shop our store to find these and more and make your World Turtle Day even more meaningful. worldturtleday.org/shop-products/

No turtles in space this time. And we’re grateful for that. What we’re Shellebrating instead is Integrity! An extraordinary mission breaking records and inspiring generations. Thank you for moving science forward.

Happy Easter!

We asked Evil to be friendlier. He said no. worldturtleday.org

BREAKING: Turtles have been out here serving looks this whole time 👀🐢 Tell us: what would YOUR shell look like if you could design it? Happy April Fools!

You heard him. It’s cloacal respiration.

World Turtle Day® is in 2 months 🐢 This is not a drill Repeat: NOT A DRILL Tell us how you’re shellebrating?!?

A plastic bag can be a death sentence for sea turtles. Why? Because it looks like jellyfish. Sea turtles eat it, thinking it is food. Plastic then blocks their digestive system and many do not survive. This World Water Day, skip the plastic.

Winter hibernation mode: OFF Basking chaos: ON

Bunkle the Leprechaun did what we all would do… follow the rainbow straight to the pot of gold. 🌈 But plot twist: it’s not gold. It’s World Turtle Day® merch. 👀🐢 worldturtleday.org

200 million years on Earth, bad luck can't touch us!

Get ready for that beat drop, World Turtle Day® is COMING! Bunkle is getting ready for the Shellebration... are YOU?!?!? Join us at: worldturtleday.org

@nypost whoa.

109-year-old giant tortoise undergoes medical scan in Australia trib.al/gVFI2g4

The choices we make every day shape the world wildlife inherits. What we consume. What we protect. What we ignore. Sustainability is not a trend. It’s a responsibility. Be the reason they are still here. @wildlifeday #WorldWildLifeDay #WWD2026

On the remote island of Golem Grad in Lake Prespa, North Macedonia, an extreme skew in the adult sex ratio of Hermann's tortoises (Testudo hermanni) is driving a population toward collapse through intense sexual coercion by males. A study published in Ecology Letters documents how males vastly outnumber females—reaching ratios as high as 19:1 in some areas of the island's plateau—creating conditions where sexually coercive behavior becomes relentless. Males pursue females aggressively, engaging in behaviors such as bumping, biting (sometimes causing blood loss), mounting in groups, and poking fleeing females with a sharp tail tip. These interactions often inflict severe injuries, including cloacal trauma from forced copulations, leading to emaciation, reduced body condition, lower reproductive output (fewer and smaller clutches), and markedly decreased annual survival rates compared to females in nearby mainland populations. In desperate attempts to escape this persistent harassment, researchers have documented females walking off the island's sheer cliffs, resulting in fatal falls or debilitating injuries. The authors describe this dynamic as triggering an "extinction vortex" or "demographic suicide," where the combination of high population density and extreme male bias in a coercive mating system accelerates female mortality and suppresses recruitment, independent of external threats like predation or habitat degradation. The research draws on 16 years of capture-recapture data, behavioral observations, and demographic modeling. Simulations incorporating observed survival and fecundity rates predict that, if trends continue, the last female tortoise on Golem Grad will die around 2083, leading to localized extinction of the population despite its once-high density (approximately 100 individuals per hectare). Lead author Dragan Arsovski, from the Macedonian Ecological Society, and colleagues emphasize that this represents the first documented wild example of such a self-reinforcing extinction process driven by sex-ratio bias and coercive mating. Paradoxically, the apparent prosperity suggested by high overall numbers masks a severe imbalance that disproportionately harms females and dooms the population. [Arsovski, D., et al. (2026). Sex Ratio Bias Triggers Demographic Suicide in a Dense Tortoise Population. Ecology Letters, 29(1), e70296. DOI: 10.1111/ele.70296]

Giant tortoises are returning to the wild on Floreana Island in the Galápagos for the first time in over 150 years. Conservation teams used @NASA satellite data to help choose release sites where the animals can find food, water, and nesting areas. go.nasa.gov/3MDcK11

East Coast said: brumate. ❄️ How’s everyone doing? Show us the snow 👀