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Bindi Irwin’s daughter, Grace, is still best friends with a tortoise!
On Sunday, Dec. 21, Bindi, her husband Chandler Powell, and her mother, Terri Irwin, posted a collaborative Instagram photo of the 4-year-old posing with a giant turtle. Grace wore a floor-length green ballgown as she pet the reptile’s head.
“Best friends seem to share thoughts. So much love.💕,” the caption read.
The post doesn’t clarify who the tortoise is, but Bindi, 27, previously told Entertainment Tonight that Grace is “best friends” with an Aldabra tortoise named Igloo.
Instagram users guessed in the comments that Grace was spending quality time with Igloo. One user wrote, “Grace and Igloo are the bestest of friends ❤️🥹🥰🐢.” Another added: “I bet they can practically read each others minds 🥹❤️.”
Other users commented on the young girl’s fashionable outfit, “Oh my goodness❤️❤️! What a gorgeous dress Princess Grace is wearing❤️💚❤️💚,” one person wrote.
Terri Irwin/Instagram
On Nov. 28, the proud mom posted a video of Grace greeting Igloo for the first time after the family had been in Los Angeles to support Robert Irwin on Dancing with the Stars for several months.
“H O M E. 🐢 The first thing Grace wanted to do? See her best friend, Igloo,” Bindi’s Instagram caption read.
In the video, Grace hugged the tortoise and said, “I missed you.” She then excitedly fed the reptile.
“When he sees Grace, he runs across his paddock, which is huge. If you’re a tortoise, you can’t really run very fast, but he does his best, runs across the paddock to see her and just sits,” Bindi told Entertainment Tonight of her then-10-month-old daughter’s relationship with Igloo. “She tries to pat him, and she just ends up kind of like hitting him on the head.”
“They love each other! It’s the funniest thing you’ve ever seen,” she noted at the time. “I love that my daughter’s best friend is a tortoise.”
Bindi Irwin/Instagram
In June, Bindi explained on the Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce podcast that she and her husband decided to slowly let Grace be around animals like tortoises, wombats and echidnas. Bindi is teaching Grace to read animal cues and hopes to build on that.
“And that’s what my parents did with me. It was a slow progression as I got older,” Bindi said. “And then it kind of becomes second nature.”
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Bindi remarked that her daughter still wants to “be part of everything.”
“So like, when we’re feeding the crocodiles, she’s like, ‘Why can’t I be there with you?’ She’s crying, ‘I just wanna feed the crocodiles!'”
She added that Grace is a “wild child,” whose personality is similar to that of her father, the late Steve Irwin.
“I did not expect that having a little one. I was like, ‘Where did this come from?’ Oh, my dad,” she said.
