The Bolson tortoise also called the Mexican giant tortoise or Yellow-margined tortoise, is a species of tortoise

Tortoise

Tortoises are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles . Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise...

 from North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. Of the four North American tortoise species, it is the largest, having a carapace length of about 46 cm (18.1 in). It lives in a region of the Chihuahuan Desert

Chihuahuan Desert

The Chihuahuan Desert is a desert, and an ecoregion designation, that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border in the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau, bordered on the west by the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, and overlaying northern portions of the east range, the Sierra...

 known as the Bolsón de Mapimí

Bolsón de Mapimí

The Bolsón de Mapimí is an endorheic river basin located in the center-north of the Mexican Plateau.It is also known as the Comarca Lagunera, and is shared by the states of Durango, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Zacatecas...

, which is located in north-central Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.
The Bolson tortoise was discovered only in 1959. The legend is that a group of biologists working in the Bolsón de Mapimí were at a ranch and saw chickens eating out of a large tortoise shell.