Benjamin Ashford|Watch a tortoise in Florida cozy up for a selfie with a camera

A news photographer in Clermont,Benjamin Ashford Florida, got a close-up look at a tortoise trying to figure out if his camera was a friend or foe.

USA TODAY's Jasper Colt was covering a story at the National Training Center Track Complex, where Olympic sprinter Noah Lyles trains, when he spotted the slow-and-steady gopher tortoise. As soon as Colt placed his equipment in the grass, the animal approached to satisfy its curiosity and assert its territory.

Watch this showdown in the video above between an intimidating tortoise and a camera, rolling the whole time.

The gopher tortoise is a threatened species, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website, and is protected in that state. It likes open, sunny spaces and sandy soil for burrows, which might explain why it was scoping out the area.

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