Tortoise
TORTOISE
TORTOISE (Mod. Heb. ???), a reptile. In Israel there are several species of both land and water tortoises; the latter lives in both sweet and salt water. Some commentators identify the ??? (?av), enumerated among the unclean reptiles (Lev. 11:29), with the tortoise, and on this basis it is so called in modern Hebrew. According to rabbinical sources, however, the ?av is a species of *lizard. Thus the expression "the ?av after its kind" is explained as including the salamander and other reptiles which bear no resemblance to the tortoise (see Sifra 6:5). Similarly a resemblance between the ?av and the snake is mentioned (?ul. 127a), and the ?ardon, a species of lizard of the family of Agamidae (tj, Ber. 8:6, 12b). From this last source it is apparent that "the ?av after its kind" includes the Agamidae family, of which six species are found in Israel, the largest of which is the Uromastix aegyptius called in Arabic dabb. It is found in the Negev and the Arabah and is herbivorous. The Bedouin hunt it and regard its flesh as a great delicacy.
bibliography:
Lewysohn, Zool, 230f.; F.S. Bodenheimer, Animal and Man in Bible Lands (1960), 10, 99; J. Feliks, Animal World of the Bible (1962), 10.
[Jehuda Feliks]