Random Pet Family Appreciation Thread 9: Turtles!

[Wassa]

Former threads:
Moths - Warp Stalkers - Crocolisks - Monkeys - Wolves - Core Hounds - Wasps - Dragonhawks

Random pet family appreciation thread is where I roll a random pet family every week for everyone to share their pictures, their stories, their love for that pet family. Please no hate or rants. This is an appreciation thread. If you dislike the family, don't post! Hopefully with some love we can get some hunters to try out new pets they never would have thought to tame before.

Our ninth family is the sturdy turtles!


Image from WoW TCG.

Turtle facts

~Turtles have been a tameable family since Vanilla WoW.

~Turtles have three tameable models and seven skin colors.

~Turtles have four rare members: Cranky Benj, Ironback, Scalebeard, and Terrorpene (also unique skinned)

~Besides Terrorpene listed above, turtles have one other unique skinned named member Ghamoo-Ra. Also to note both turtles are unique models.

~Back in Wrath, turtles were tamed by 1.2% of level 80 hunters. Placing them at number 15 on the list, tied with both scorpids and wasps. (Source)

~Back in Wrath, seaturtleskinblue was the most tamed skin at 30.9%. Seaturtleskingrey was the least tamed skin at 10.1%. (Source)

~Two turtle mounts exist in game. Like real turtles, they are both very slow on land and move at normal run speed, but are fast swimmers. The first was Riding Turtle, which was the first TCG loot mount introduced. This mount is the only mount without a level or riding skill requirement to use, so it can be used by everyone, even a level one character. The other mount is the Sea Turtle, which is a very rare drop from fish pools in Northrend and Cataclysm zones (including Darkmoon Island).

~Want a cute little baby turtle? Two turtle minipets are available to players: Darkmoon Turtle and Speedy. A Loggerhead Snapjaw minipet has been datamined, but is not available to players.

~A mage with Tome of Polymorph: Turtle can transform enemy players and NPCs into turtles.

~Cranky Benji has a younger, more optimistic version of himself in Old Hillsbrad Foothills instance. Wonder how he got so cranky?

~Sand Turtles are extremely tiny in the wild, despite being level 70.

~Terrorpene is probably the most well known member of the turtle family, being a Cataclysm tameable rare with unique skin and model. Other turtles share his look, but they are not tameable. Terrorpene also makes a soft fire crackling noise after taming. His skin does not display correctly in the armory and on WoW Model Viewer. A fix for his skin for WMV is here. (Made by me. Totally shameless plug.) The lava turtle model concept art has six legs and a more dragon-like face, plus includes a sketch of a two-headed version!

[Wassa]

I have Terrorpene on Wassa. Sadly, this is the one tame that made me feel bad. I had been doing flybys for Terrorpene since I was level 81. I didn't see him until I was level 85, and he was dead. Second time I saw him he was alive, with many skeletons around him. I just figured someone failed at killing or taming him, and I saw no one around me. After a very close tame surviving with a few hitpoints left, two blood elves rezzed beside me. One was a hunter and she bitched me out for stealing "her tame." I kept on trying to tell her that I didn't see her (I think their bodies where in the lava, why I didn't see them), but she refused to believe me and used very foul language at me. I had to ignore her. =/

Thankfully I gave Terrorpene a good home with me and he became a she and is now named Timu. I named her after one of the two rhinos at the zoo I used to work at. I wasn't sure of the meaning of the name back when I named her. Now, looking up the name, I see a bunch of meanings. Most common is the swahili word for "team" but I also found it can mean "Goddess of Light" and "to be perfect" in other African languages.

The meaning of her name doesn't matter. Timu just sounded like a turtle name to me. Her personality became similar to the real Timu; an older laid back female that takes life slow, also perfect for a turtle. She can be excitable at times, especially when I give her tanking challenges. She is my "hardcore" tanking pet. Although I prefer my worm for a tanking pet, sometimes only Timu can take on certain solo tanking situations with her Shell Shield.

-----------------------

I got Ptay's turtle for the same reason, I needed a "hardcore" tanking pet for soloing the ICC 5 mans when I was a bit undergeared, but I wanted my transmog set asap. I didn't bond with Ptay's first turtle, which was the white skin, so I tamed Ghamoo-Ra on whim and he worked.

His name is Qaletaqa. While being an awesome name with two Qs in it, it means "guardian of the people" in Hopi. Originally Ptay's worm had this name, but I didn't bond with my first worm and released it, but I loved the name and reused it for my turtle.

Qaletaqa is an old male turtle. He's grumpy and reluctant to do anything. He much rather find a pond to just wade in.

"Go away!"

[Melentari]

I love turtles as pets.

Back before Dustwallow Marsh was overhauled, I tamed one of the Mudrock Snapjaws. This was back in BC, so I've had him with me for a long time, and trying to get him up to level 70 took ages. When he was at 69, I almost gave up but one night on impulse, I took him with me to a Karazhan run - and he actually dinged 70 in Kara. I knew then that I could never get rid of him.

I also have Terrorpene on two of my hunters because c'mon, that's a great turtle, and I'm planning to get Ghamoo-Ra on my reptile-themed hunter.

Overall, I love turtles and beetles for tanking pets. They're easily my favourites.

[Chimera]

Turtles ^^ I must admit i really dont like them.. but when my Terrorpene Ruin appeared as Screenshot of the Day on Blizzards website i have gone bat crazy over the fiery guy <3 He keeps my troll-turned-worgen warm during those long Time-Lost camps, beats Skadi into a pulp every time i do my Blue-Protodrake run, keeps my campfires hot when im training my cooking skill.. i just looooove him <33

[Bonita]

I have Terropene on my Main hunter, but I dont use him much. I mainly use my beetle for tanking.
On Sokola I have a white turtle named Tiger (Named after my real life turtle lol). Shes all I used when questing while leveling and shes what I use when I get bored and go back to solo instances. I love turtles!

[Ana]

I adore turtles

I only got one for the moment but i 3 turtles throughout Tårnfalk´s lving time.

Her first one was Tøf, which was a turtle i had on an off up to the lich king.

When the new turtle models came out, i went to bfd and tamed Abyss , which was a faitfull companion to me until i found my belowed firebreathing turtle

Barbecute (my husband thought of the genious name) i love him alot, his cute, his fierce and i adore his coloring . He is a formiddable tank and whenever i am in a " i need to survive" situation, he always comes to my rescue

[TygerDarkstorm]

I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of Terrorpene in this thread.

And I too have Terrorpene and I believe he is the only turtle currently employed as an "elite" tank pet between my hunters. I was absolutely determined to tame this bad boy at level 81 and I did, and the only assistance I had was my boyfriend on his holy pally trying to keep me alive. It took me about 5 attempts and the man going oom, but I did get Terrorpene at level 81. He is currently named Smores.


I absolutely fell in love with his model after thinking I hated it, and I'm a little sad he hasn't always gotten as much use as he probably should (blame my playing BM most of the time and ferocity/cunning pets sufficing for most of my solo work), however he has been my go to buddy for tanking FoS and PoS and I'm sure he'll see more use in the future.

[Niabi]

I adore turtles! They're all quite the characters among my hunter stables ...

Khau's turtle is JubJub.


JubJub's personality is a lot like Doug's from the Pixar movie "Up". He's loyal, sweet, and just a little derpy - but in a good and lovable way. He's been Khau's comic relief since the Burning Crusade and I just can't ever imagine the two going their seperate ways.

It was in a former guild that JubJub obtained his celebrity status ... everybody adored him and would often request his presence during dungeon runs and raids!


Ghiselle's turtle is Rousch.


Rousch is a "large and in-charge" type of personality and reminds me somewhat of those types of dogs that always seem to gain a bad rep - pit bulls, rottweilers, etc. - but with the right kind of owner, are extremely well-mannered and quite friendly.

He loves to show off his "toughness" and would never dream of taking on just a single mob at a time - oh heaven's no! He's the kind of pet that's going to go into a fight, "guns blazing", and pull a whole fleet of mobs to take down at a time! Fortunately for him, Ghiselle is the quintessential tomboy and their fighting preferences are perfectly synched for these sort of antics


Galatea is one of my newest additions and belongs to my huntress Drakara.


Galatea's story is still in development at this time. I can already tell that her personality is much more subdued than my other turtles. I am in the habit of calling her my "quiet warrior" as I see her having a sort of "Sun Tzu" philosophy to warfare.

[starkittens]

ok, I admit, I don't really have a turtle...I have terrors, but I released her, and she likes to stay away from me....I loce their skins, But I haven't found the perfect match for my Tauran. I still haven't found the perfect one...

[Vephriel]

Here comes another Terrorpene story!

I originally had no plans to tame the new turtle model when it was first datamined. Both the anicent and fire models were gorgeous, but turtles had never been a pet that clicked with me, at least not on Veph.

I was in the Cataclysm beta, and at some point I decided to scout out Terrorpene and see him in person. When I eventually found him spawned, I tamed him and...he completely won me over. I went from being indifferent towards him to completely falling in love with the model. He had so much personality, all gruff and grumpy and endearing. All throughout the beta I grew more and more attached.



By the time Cataclysm was released officially, I planned to hit 81 as soon as humanly possible and tame him straight away (my hope was to catch his first spawn). Of course things didn't go exactly as planned. I did reach 81 in record timing on the midnight release date, and proceeded to camp until well into the afternoon of the next day until I was too tired to go on and passed out. I had been awake for over 24 hours. I ended up missing his spawn by a couple hours if I recall correctly. I was a little crestfallen, but not about to give up hope.

After getting some sleep that day, I woke up and resumed the camp. It was another long stakeout and around 4am I feared I was not going to have any luck again when BAM, NPC Scan blares at me. He had spawned practically on top of me!

I went through the usual state of shock for the first few seconds, forgetting what I was supposed to do. I had read up on solo-taming strategies since he was no pushover. I was fully prepared with all sorts of buffs, haste, and a disposable core hound for Ancient Hysteria. I pulled everything I had and...he completely wiped the floor with me.

It was a horrible feeling to realize that I just wasn't going to be able to do this tame by myself. I was panicking by that point fearing someone else was going to come grab him. Kalli saved the day though by logging into her shaman and coming to help. With her totems and heals I managed to tame him, and it was one of the greatest tames I've had to date.

Igneous was born that day, or Iggy as I tend to call him, and he's still my dominant tanking pet who I always use for any sort of solo challenge.

[Lisaara]

Terrorpene is my favorite by far.

[Lupis]

John is one of my favorite pets, and will always be top tank in Daphine's book. I really love this turtle. He was a spur of the moment tame - I needed a tank, and I didn't want to wait until 84 to tame the beetle I had planned to get. I decided on a turtle, and after some thought, on a grey one. They're very pretty, if a bit boring at first glance. A quick skip and a hop over to the Hinterlands and I had a pretty turtle at my side.

It only took me a few minutes to name him. I have recently become addicted to the BBC drama "Sherlock", which is a modern day portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. (Also it's amazing and should be watched by all) What could be more fitting? Of course he had to be John.

[Sesamee]

I love the WoW turtles! And turtles in general. One day I'd love to have a tortoise as a rl pet.

Sesame's turtle is Daredevil. I named him that because he's a fiery tank rushing head first into battle. It seemed appropriate. He is undeniably badass looking but he and I got off to a rocky start. I ended up releasing him and after not seeing him for months, he showed up three nights in a row until I relented and tamed him again. I've always thought he was amazing looking but after his persistence in getting back in my stable I can't help but be a little more fond of him. Whether or not my attachment to him keeps growing or I end up releasing him, he is still super cool and totally badass!!




Loaghaire is my alt, Laiala's turtle. I adore her. She is a wise old soul. I love the pink ribbon around her soft grey shell. Her name is Gaelic and is pronounced Layruh. I love her so much I've been thinking of rehoming her onto my main. She seems to fit so well on my alt though so I haven't yet.

[Miacoda]

I have a turtle on each of my 85 hunters! ^.^

Miacoda and Terrorpene


Espen and Ragnarok


Sarahma and Tank


Syleanora and Ghamoo

[Mozag]

I've never been a huge fan of the turtles, for some reason. The new models are obviously gorgeous, but I felt that the old was somehow "wrong", and their faces bothered me somewhat.

[Wassa]

Awww! You two are touching noses. That's adorable.

[Sesamee]

Thanks! I love that shot!

[Rhyela]

Sheldon! 'Nuff said. Actually, I just want to say that turtles are one of my favorite pet families. Not only is their family ability super-awesome, but they're just so darned cute!

[Sherbe]

Sherbe has the grey turtle called Puca. He's awesome, and very patient. I have set him free twice, to try Ghamoora and Terrorpene, but no dice, no connection. Puca is the only turtle for Sherbe! I love how old-model turtles are kind of stare-y and derpy.

[Neilaren]

I'm late to the party~ As usual.

I didn't have a turtle until Cataclysm. My pocket-paladin boyfriend and I leveled in Hyjal on the first day. Soon, I hit 81, and I fancied myself a flyby of Terrorpene's area very late that night. Oh my gosh, was he ever there! So I called Liedel over and tried to think of a plan to keep me alive, since I don't think I was meant to tame it so early. I'd use my corehound to Ancient Hysteria, then I'd dismiss it (not abandon, mind you) and hope I wouldn't die, since taking heals usually broke taming. Liedel also thought to throw Hand of Sacrifice on me. With that and a shortened tame, I took hardly any damage, and the tame was a snap!
I may possibly have Shu'halo's first Terrorpene. I was never able to find anyone who had possibly tamed it earlier in the day, if it was possible.

I already knew I was going to name him Torkoal. So many similarities! I wish he doubled as a cooking fire...

Torkoal actually has raided. He tanked the first phase of Nefarian for us in BWD! Specifically, he tanked the skeleton adds. He needed a dedicated healer besides me, and priests with shackle helped tremendously as I focused on misdirecting each add to Torkoal. Having a (at the time, pre-nerf too) progression raid fight where a hunter pet was legitimately able to tank was great fun, and part of me wishes for more in the future.