Riding Turtle
The riding turtle is obtained by finding a rare Saltwater Snapjaw "Loot Card" in the WoW collectible trading card game from Upper Deck Entertainment. The card has a scratch-off code which is used to obtain the item. A given code only gets you one turtle on one character on one server, so you do not get it on all your characters (unlike the collector's edition pets).
The Saltwater Snapjaw card comes in both loot and ordinary forms. Only the loot version of the card includes the scratch off code. The card is apparently extremely rare, and sells for as much as several hundred dollars on eBay. The initial printing of the card game sold out almost immediately, making these cards even rarer in the interval before another print run is released.
The riding turtle is a "cosmetic" item in that it grants no actual benefit apart from looking cute. While mounted on the turtle you move at normal running speed, though you are actually mounted so effects that affect run speed do not operate but effects that affect mount speed do. So turtles do like carrots apparently.
It requires level 20.
It is an ordinary "white" item. This means you have to be careful not to accidentally delete it as it is not protected by the item deletion confirmation prompt.
The turtle does not have a complete set of mount animations. It basically walks forward and does the standard turtle idle animations. There is no jump animation and it mostly skids when moving backwards.
As with all other mounts it is not usable indoors, while swimming etc.
Using Preserved/Fresh Holly on the turtle mount turns it temporarily into a level 40 Reindeer mount with 60% speed boost. The holly requires level 40 to use, but you could be level 40 without any riding skill and use the holly and the turtle mount toegether to at least temporarily get you a "free" level 40 mount.
Saltwater Snapjaw
Besides being a potential loot card, the Saltware Snapjaw card is also useful in the card game. Its ability to prevent all damage to it this turn for a cost of 3 can make it difficult to kill. [1]