Do Tortoises Like To Be Touched?

Tortoises use their tough skin and even tougher shells as tools for survival, and their hard exteriors tend to make people assume the tortoise inside the shell isn't a warm and tender creature.

But as reptile biologist Matt Evans of the Smithsonian National Zoo Reptile Discovery Center demonstrates in this video tortoises genuinely enjoy physical contact, and they'll even try to return the favor in their own clumsy way:

Tortoises enjoy tactile sensations; rubbing, scratching, that kind of thing. So when we go in there with them and we’re engaging with them – we’ll kind of rub their shell, scratch their head a bit and when we do that, they extend that neck out and they’ll look like they’re enjoying it a little bit and that’s just something we do to interact with the tortoises on a daily basis.

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And in case you also happen to be wondering what a tortoise's diet consists of here's another video made by Matt Evans that explains what goes in to a tortoise salad.

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-Via Laughing Squid