{"id":2759,"date":"2026-04-30T07:29:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/?p=2759"},"modified":"2026-04-30T07:29:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:29:45","slug":"sonoran-desert-tortoise-on-a-mountain-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/testudindae\/sonoran-desert-tortoise-on-a-mountain-top\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonoran Desert Tortoise on a Mountain Top"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I scrambled to the high rocky ridge of a mountain in western Arizona, looking for rattlesnakes. The steep terrain and loose rocky ground made it difficult to get there. I was surprised to run into this big Sonoran Desert Tortoise (<em>Gophersus morafkai<\/em>) up there. These animals are great climbers, often picking hiding spots far up hillsides in places I wouldn&#8217;t even want to climb. We passed each other, and he headed down slope in what looked to be a dangerously steep area \u2026 but as I was the one slipping and sliding all over the place, I figured he knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"850\" src=\"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gopherus-morafkai-_1221-Edit-1200x850.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2760\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gopherus-morafkai-_1221-Edit-1200x850.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gopherus-morafkai-_1221-Edit-752x533.jpg 752w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gopherus-morafkai-_1221-Edit-768x544.jpg 768w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gopherus-morafkai-_1221-Edit-1536x1089.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gopherus-morafkai-_1221-Edit-2048x1451.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I scrambled to the high rocky ridge of a mountain in western Arizona, looking for rattlesnakes. The steep terrain and loose rocky ground made it difficult to get there. I was surprised to run into this big Sonoran Desert Tortoise (Gophersus morafkai) up there. These animals are great climbers, often picking hiding spots far up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[322,323,321],"tags":[38,178,587],"class_list":["post-2759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gopherus","category-morafkai","category-testudindae","tag-arizona","tag-mountain","tag-la-paz-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2761,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2759\/revisions\/2761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/fieldherper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}