Cartoons often suggest turtles wear shells like removable armor. Those stories show turtles stepping out, swapping shells, or treating them like clothing. Biology disagrees. A turtle shell is not an ...

Narrator: A turtle's shell is as much a part of its body as our rib cage is of ours. In fact, it is their rib cage, and their spine, and their vertebrae, and their sternum. Basically, a turtle's ...

A turtle’s shell makes for a great portable home, offering a huge amount of protection to the animal living inside. But this carapace is nothing more than an evolutionary byproduct of another ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The broad-shelled river turtle (Chelodina expansa) falls into a group known as side-neck turtles.

In cartoons, when a turtle is spooked, it retreats into and closes up its shell. While used for comic effect, this imagery is based in fact – although not all turtles are capable of this protective ...

Hans-Dieter Sues - Curator, Paleontology, National Museum of Natural History In a fit of pique, according to one of Aesop's fables, the god Hermes made the animal carry its house forever on its back.

Reporting from San Diego — Just in time for the holidays, a loggerhead sea turtle at Birch Aquarium in La Jolla got a perfectly fitting gift. The turtle, rescued in 2013 with a broken shell and ...

It's a long-held idea that turtles can tuck their heads into their shells when threatened. But is it true? And is this protective trick why turtles the world over have shells today? The answer is that ...