When you adopt a desert tortoise, prepare for a surprisingly social and zippy pet Dotty the desert tortoise enjoys a snack of yellow trumpet flowers in Scottsdale, Ariz., on May 4, 2023.

If found injured or in a populated area, the public can call the Desert Tortoise Adoption hotline at 1-844-896-5730 for guidance and help in determining whether the tortoise may be an escaped pet.

A 3.5-million-acre swath of Mojave Desert, between Ridgecrest and the Morongo Basin, has been named a sentinel landscape, a federally led effort to promote sustainable land-use near military ...

Desert tortoises have lived in the deserts of California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah since the Pleistocene. In the early years of the 20th century, they still thrived within the Southwest's arid ...

A desert tortoise in the Mojave Desert near Kramer Junction. Located on BLM land near the Highway 58, a biologist estimated it to be 50 years or older. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) ...

In this Sept. 3, 2008, file photo, an endangered desert tortoise sits in the middle of a road in the eastern Mojave Desert near Ivanpah, Calif. (Reed Saxon/Associated Press) ...

But there is such a thing as a lap tortoise. What’s more, pet tortoises can wag their tails, will plod on up to greet you and some can even recognize their own names.