Russian Tortoise Natural History Illustrations and Elementary's Clyde Jan. 31, 2013

Summary: Russian tortoise natural history illustrations convey what Clyde cannot on healthy lifestyles and looks in Elementary episode The Red Team Jan. 31, 2013.

Russian tortoise (Agrionemys horsfieldii) on a walk; Friday, May 27, 2005, 13:20: Väsk, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

A Russian tortoise attracts attention as an abandoned animal in the Columbia Broadcasting System's procedural drama series Elementary Jan. 31, 2013, and, because of classification controversies, in Russian tortoise natural history illustrations.

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) brings the Russian tortoise Clyde from hanging victim Len Pontecorvo's apartment to his Brooklyn brownstone, purportedly for soup, really for experiments. Director Christine Moore and writers Robert Doherty, Jeffrey Paul King and Craig Sweeny change one tortoise for another every other scene in season one's 13th episode. Viewers detect differences between the duo with difficulty, just as chelonologists (tortoise specialists) still discuss distinguishing distinct Russian tortoise subspecies under the one genus and species.

The name Clyde encompasses two tortoises just as Russian tortoise natural history illustrations evoke one genus or more, one species, eight common names and three subspecies.

Scientists furnish the first-place genus and second-place species names Agrionemys horsfieldii ("Horsfield's wild-natured [tortoise]") or Testudo horsfieldii ("Horsfield's shelled [tortoise]") for Russian tortoise natural history illustrations.

British zoologist John Edward Gray (Feb. 12, 1800-March 7, 1875) generated Afghan, Afghanistan, Central Asian, four-clawed, Horsfield's, Russian, Russian steppe and steppe tortoise descriptions in 1844. Tortoises honoring American naturalist Thomas Horsfield (May 12, 1773-July 24, 1859) have first-named Agrionemys/Testudo horsfieldii horsfieldii and subsidiary Agrionemys/Testudo horsfieldii kazakhstanica and Agrionemys/Testudo horsfieldii rustamovi subspecies. Paleobiologist Viacheslav Mikhailovich Chkhikvadze includes as additional susidiary subspecies Agrionemys/Testudo horsfieldii bogdanovi since 2008, Agrionemys/Testudo horsfieldii kuznetzovi since 2009 and Agrionemys /Testudo horsfieldii terbishi since 2009.

Russian tortoise natural history illustrations juggle species-specific and subspecies-unique native populations in Afghanistan, Armenia, Balochistan, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Russian tortoise subspecies keep to desert habitats with cold winters, cool nights, dry hot summers, 12-hour days except during aestivation and 12-hour nights except during hibernation.

Russian tortoise natural history illustrations sometimes let in some native hilly, rocky, sandy-soiled landscapes with grassy, vegetated springs up to 8,202.1-foot (2,50-meter) altitudes above sea level. Mature females and males need four burrowing, climbing-friendly toes and net 6- to 10-inch- (15.24- to 25.4-centimeter-) and 5- to 8-inch (12.7- to 20.32-centimeter-) long bodies. Soils malleable 6.56 feet (2 meters) down and warm-weather temperatures nightly and daily at 40 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit 15.5 and 35 degrees Celsius) maintain tortoises.

Maturity offers 4-plus-inch- (10.16-centimeter-) long, long-clawed, long-tailed males slit-shaped vents nearer spur-tipped tails and 6-plus-inch- (15.24-centimeter-) long, short-clawed, short-tailed females asterisk-shaped vents nearer plastrons (lower shells).

Females produce multiple clutches of one to six semi-white, 0.56- to 1.06-ounce (16- to 30-gram) eggs within which blood vessels pulse two to four weeks later.

Eight- to 16-week incubations at 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit (29.44 to 32.22 degrees Celsius) queue up, after two-day breakouts, folded-over, 1-inch- (2.54-centimeter-) long, sideways-lodged hatchlings. Fourteen-day yolk sacs rally hatchlings whereas Russian tortoise natural history illustrations relay juveniles and adults requiring grasses and herbaceous, succulent flowers, fruits, leaves, stems and twigs. Broadleaf and mixed forests, deserts, grasslands and shrublands sustain brown-jawed, yellow-necked adults with black-, olive-, red-, yellow-brown upper shells and black-brown-yellow bodies, heads, limbs and plastrons.

Russian tortoise natural history illustrations transmit healthy lifestyles and looks that turn Clyde toward 50- to 100-year life cycles despite agro-industry, collection, eco-stress and political turmoil.

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Detective Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) in CBS Elementary's The Red Team (season 1 episode 13): Elementary @CBSElementary, via Facebook Jan. 30, 2013

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Russian tortoise (Agrionemys horsfieldii) on a walk; Friday, May 27, 2005, 13:20: Väsk, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Testudo_horsfieldii_walking.jpg

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Detective Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) in CBS Elementary's The Red Team (season 1 episode 13): Elementary @CBSElementary, via Facebook Jan. 30, 2013, @ https://www.facebook.com/ElementaryCBS/photos/a.151627898295663/218467664945019

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