Tortoises go to water only to drink or bathe. Three species of tortoises occur in the United States and a fourth is found in Mexico. Some can be found in California, where they were sold in the past for pets.
Tortoises occupy a wide variety of habitats in the United States.
We make two generalizations about the habitats, however. They occupy a wide variety of soil types, ranging from sand dunes to rocky hillsides, and from caliche caves in washes to sandy soils and desert pavements. Tortoises living in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona occupy entirely different habitats. They are found on the steep, rocky slopes of hillsides. The slopes may be covered with granitic or volcanic boulders and are often covered with dense vegetation.