The three striped mud turtle, or Kinosternon baurii is one of the prettiest turtles you can have as a pet. Indeed, it is a beautiful reptile, with its bright yellow plastron and the three stripes down the carapace. Many of these…

You probably remember those little turtles that used to be sold at county fairs in terrible little trays with that ghastly plastic palm tree in the center. You probably even got one with -- egad! -- a painted shell. It almost certainly…

You have just installed your lovely pet turtle in its paludarium. It may still be shy and hiding under its piece of driftwood, but in a while you’ll find it paddling happily in the warm water and hauling out now and then to warm up in the…

They’ve been basically unchanged for 157 million years. Why mess around with a nearly perfect body plan? Turtles and their relatives, the terrapins and the tortoises are descended from ancient reptiles called the chelonians, the only…

They have thick skulls. Turtles are anapsids, which means their skulls are solid save for openings for their eyes and nostrils. Next Thing Previous Thing

Scientists divide turtles into how they retract their heads into their shells. Turtles who bend their necks vertically are called Pleurodira, while those that bend their neck back vertically are called Cryptodira. When the neck is…

Ancient turtles were huge. The largest of the freshwater turtles was actually called Stupendemys. This beast lived in South America during the Pliocene epoch and was nearly 11 feet long. Testudo atlas, a land tortoise, was the biggest land…

Turtles have no teeth, but they used to. Turtles lost their teeth about 200 million years ago. Now they have beaks that are lined with quite sharp ridges. Even a hatchling can deliver a surprisingly potent nip. Next Thing…

The shell is actually part of the animal’s spine and ribs. The upper part of the shell is called the carapace and the lower part is called the plastron. The outer layer is covered with scales called scutes. Scutes are part of the turtle’s…

Shells are useful, but they make it hard to breathe. Since the animal’s body is enclosed in the shell, they don’t breathe like other animals do by expanding and contracting their ribs. The ribs, as we now know, are part of the rigid shell.…