Article by Molly Schafer Photos courtesy of Molly Schafer, Mat Smith, Andy Tocydlowski, Maya Walker, Jim White, Kenneth Geisert and University Archives September 10, 2024 The discovery of a ...

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 ...

As a budding naturalist growing up in the concrete-heavy environs of Boston, I would regularly thumb through my family’s collection of nature books and daydream about the creatures within. One species ...

Shell integration typically involves 50 to 60 individual bones fusing into a permanent structural cage. The carapace creates a mechanical constraint that prevents the chest from expanding during ...

What do you think of when you hear the word “tortoise”? The giant tortoises that lumber along like tanks over the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean? The gopher ...

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 ...

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 ...