Pelomedusa subrufa

Taken 10th February 2016
Maasai Mara
May be quite difficult to ID.
Will upload more pictures when I get back to Warsaw.
For more details on my trip, see here: http://www.zoochat.com/808/trip-kenya-february-2016-a-435669

According to a field guide that I just got, the only possible tortoise species for the Maasai Mara is a Leopard Tortoise, so this must just be a particularly dark individual.

Could be a pancake tortoise?

Nope. Wrong distribution for a start, and the shell was not the right shape.

Well it's a bit hard to tell that from the photo.

Why do you need the photo to tell the distribution?
I joke, it is obviously a very poor picture and I did get a much better view of it than can be seen in the picture, but only managed to get my camera out just as it was disappearing into the long grass.

Why didn't you just pick it up? Also the "tortoise" may actually be an East African black mud turtle.

I realise that, that's why I put tortoise in quotation marks.

I didn't pick it up for several reasons, firstly being in the Maasai Mara I was in my safari vehicle and you are not allowed to get out of the vehicle at any old place. Secondly, even if I was able to pick it up, I doubt I would have anyway for several reasons, including not wanting to disturb the animal unnecessarily.

I was thinking that it could be some kind of a turtle species actually, though the behavior and habitat strikes me as being much more suited to a tortoise than a turtle. This tortoise/possibly turtle is going to have to go down as 'unidentified' anyway, as I'm not going to get a solid ID on this.

Shockingly enough, I've actually got an ID for this:

Pelomedusa subrufa