Testudo waves the Maryland flag before introductions prior to the Terps’ 75-59 victory over Michigan State at Xfinity Center on Jan. 17, 2014.

Over the years, Testudo has gone through a metamorphosis. He started as a lifelike terrapin, eventually evolving into the caricature we see today. Cue Testudo timeline.

This university’s unofficial war cry has been “Fear the Turtle” since who knows when (it apparently got big when the Terps went on their run to the Final Four in 2001), but is a turtle really that fearsome? In some incarnations, Testudo looks moderately fierce, while in others he appears relatively harmless, even goofy.

In fact, the @UofMaryland Twitter bio acknowledges this.

Cute turtle? Are turtles cute? There is, in fact, at least one Twitter account dedicated solely to admiring turtles — sea turtles, box turtles, all sorts.

Now this is none of my business, but that appears to be a sea turtle, and those are endangered, so I really hope none of the people that retweeted this actually went out there and got one.

Some of them hit home though, especially to us Terps.

On top of that, there are these other accounts that appear to just be using the turtle image to tweet mundane #relatable things.

Cool, didn’t know turtles even discussed their music tastes with one another.

Turtles don’t have opposable thumbs. OK.

And THEN there’s the GIF that pops up when this university’s housing website, myDRL, is having trouble loading.

WHAT IS THAT. It’s adorable, that’s for sure.

Turtles aren’t that frightening. We get it.

Expectation:

Reality: