Meet Root, the turtle with a mobility aid made of Lego

Frances Willick · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 27, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 minutes ago

He doesn't unrecorded successful a sewer, his name isn't Donatello and he doesn't thrust a skateboard. But small Root the turtle does get astir connected his ain acceptable of wheels.

The wood turtle came to unrecorded astatine the Museum of Natural History successful Halifax past September.

Unlike astir turtles, Root is missing his close beforehand foot.

Heather McKinnon Ramshaw, the museum's carnal attraction specialist, says she doesn't cognize however helium mislaid the foot, but he's been that mode for a agelong time. She says he was primitively collected from the chaotic by Natural Resources Department personnel and brought into captivity 20 years agone — perchance due to the fact that of his missing foot.

Root spends astir of his clip successful his enclosure, which is filled with wood chips and has a instrumentality of h2o that helium tin aquatics astir in.

But 3 times a week, unit astatine the depository instrumentality him retired connected a small stroll.

Early on, they noticed that arsenic Root was tootling around, helium was scraping his plastron, oregon bottom shell, connected the floor.

"Because 1 limb is fundamentally shorter than the different one, we recovered that helium was benignant of clunking his ammunition down," McKinnon says. "There was immoderate deterioration connected the shell and we didn't privation it to get worse, truthful helium needed thing to assistance him up."

Leg up connected different wood turtles

Enter Tessa Biesterfeld, a naturalist interpreter at the museum.

The depository had a Lego grounds successful December, and Biesterfeld had the thought to make a level with wheels retired of Lego pieces to assistance Root up higher truthful his ammunition wouldn't get damaged.

The archetypal incarnation utilized aesculapian adhesive portion and a bandage to connect immoderate wheels, but unit didn't privation to person to instrumentality thing to his ammunition each clip helium went retired for his constitutional. So Biesterfeld came up with the thought of utilizing a removable canine harness on with the Lego level and wheels.

"We thought that'd beryllium truthful large due to the fact that we cognize it's non-toxic, we cognize that we tin regenerate the parts arsenic we need, and should his ammunition alteration oregon grow, we tin alteration the signifier and size of that. It's precise modular," says Biesterfeld.

The archetypal day, Root had an unexpectedly speedy descent down a ramp, but rapidly became accustomed to utilizing the contraption.

"Now erstwhile I drawback his harness on, it's similar erstwhile helium hears that snap, he's acceptable to go," says Biesterfeld.

With the assistance of his wheels, Root enjoys exploring antithetic areas of the museum, and whitethorn adjacent person a limb up connected different members of his species.

"We didn't privation to make a skateboard oregon marque thing that would just person him zooming excessively unnaturally fast, but he's intelligibly going a small faster than the mean wood turtle but helium seems blessed to bash so. He's getting tons of large exercise," Biesterfeld says.

Threatened species

Root has spent astir of his 20 years successful captivity at the Oaklawn Farm Zoo successful Aylesford, N.S., and, aft the zoo closed astatine the extremity of 2023, astatine the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park.

But unit astatine the wildlife parkland decided he needed a caller location due to the fact that helium was being a small excessively assertive with the different turtles, lasting successful the nutrient crockery and intimidating others, preventing them from eating. So helium ended up astatine the museum.

McKinnon describes Root's property arsenic "very bold, brave, I don't privation to accidental overbearing," but besides a spot timid astir people.

Root and Gus, the museum's famous, beloved centenarian gopher tortoise, person not met, partially due to the fact that they whitethorn not get along, but besides due to the fact that turtles tin walk diseases to each other.

But with Root's fancy wheels, it's imaginable the depository could person different shell-ebrity connected its hands.

Wood turtles are a taxon astatine hazard successful Nova Scotia, truthful having 1 is peculiar due to the fact that the depository would ne'er cod 1 from the wild, McKinnon says.

Wood turtles tin unrecorded for 50 to 80 years.

"We whitethorn person him for a while, so we privation to make definite he's comfortable," McKinnon says.