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 ...

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 ...

Move over, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — there is a new, shell-backed badass in town. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, researchers announced the discovery of a ...

Ever consider the question of whether a turtle can truly pull its head into its shell like a cartoon representation in a children’s tale? The answer is far from being merely yes or no. As mentioned in ...

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 ...

How smushed shells could help to resolve paleontological mysteries. By Asher Elbein You never know where a bit of unusual scientific research is going to lead. Consider a 2012 study about turtle ...

The biggest turtle ever described wasn’t an ancestor of today’s leatherback turtles or any other living sea turtles. But it looks like there are some things about being a giant, skin-shelled sea ...

Do turtle shells actually consist of modified ribs? The answer, surprisingly, is yes. This weird-but-true claim went viral in mid-June 2021 when Twitter user and post-doctorate turtle expert Ceri ...

Scientists have been closely monitoring a map turtle population after 10 percent died in 2022. They found a surprising ...