Please help ID this egg

[AnimalLover]

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Good day

Can someone please help?

I found this egg today in Ohrigstad. This is more or less on the border of Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces, about 35km from Pilgrim's Rest.

He was lying between or next to grass that was used for a thatch roof. I was moving some of the grass and found the egg on the ground. On the photo, it is a R2 coin next to it. He is whitish-pink and you can still see the yolk. The small dots on it, is not dirt. It is speckles.

Later today, I heard something move in the grass. Different types of lizards, snakes, etc. is common around here.

I am going to try to incubate it, but I need to know if it might be a poisonous snake.

Thanks in advance.

[Bernice]

Looks like a 'shelled' egg, i.e. it has a hard shell like a chicken egg?

If this is the case then it is not a snake/lizard egg, at least none that I know of... reptile eggs have a soft leathery shell, which makes me think that that must be a bird egg of some sort... do you have thrushes, starlings or robins in your garden? might be one of thier's?

[AnimalLover]

Thank you Bernice

When I found the egg, my husband was at work. Later when he got to saw it, he also said it is a bird's egg. He think it might be a kingfisher egg, because close by where I found it, is a kingfisher nest.

I will remember in future how to distinguish between bird and snake/lizard eggs. How do you identify a turtle egg? Is it also soft and leathery?

[Bernice]

Turtle and tortoise eggs are a little sturdier than snake eggs, but will also 'yield' a bit if you poke them but where snakes and lizard eggs are very oval, turtle eggs are usually more round, like a ping pong ball, and will always be buried underground...

on a side note, if you find reptile eggs (usually in a buried nest or under rocks and debris) be VERY careful about moving them! bird eggs can be rolled around and moved because the embryo is free, in reptile eggs the embryo is attached to the shell, and if the egg is tipped over it will drown! always keep the egg the same way up as you found it! reptile keepers usually mark the top of the egg with a pencil or non toxic marker so that they don't accidentally drown the embryo...

[AnimalLover]

Thank you.

Once I found 21 eggs of a lizard type in our garden. I was able to incubate all 21! But, I didn't know that the embryo is attached to the shell.

[SteveZi]

this could very well be a tortoise egg