On an outing with fellow stewards yesterday, one of them found a Desert Tortoise skeleton. We gathered the pieces to give to the Conservancy for education but I was given permission to take it home to photograph it first.

It was interesting to me to find that the colorful part of the shell was actually a thin covering which breaks off in segments. The pieces were made of material similar to our fingernails.

I held up one of the segments and sure enough, it had the beautiful coloring that makes it popular for things like sunglasses combs and hair accessories. Thankfully, it’s not our Desert Tortoise’s shells that are prized for manufacturing decorative materials. That turns out to be the shell of the Hawksbill Turtle.