The sea creature arrived at San Diego's Birch Aquarium in 2014 Ingrid Vasquez is a Digital News Writer at PEOPLE. She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor in Journalism.

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 ...

Sometimes animated turtles seem to live inside their shells like it’s a tiny home. They may even hop out of the shell and run around. That’s funny in cartoons and games, but my friend Ryan Wagner told ...

The ocean can be an extremely dangerous place, even for an animal that migrates through and rides its currents for decades.

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 ...

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 ...

A recent tragedy occurred in Indian River County, Florida when an elderly man tried to save a turtle. The reptile was slowly creeping across I-95 when an 87-year-old Vermont native attempted to help ...

The shells of chelonians—think turtles, tortoises, and sea turtles—grow in layers, keeping a time-stamped record of environmental conditions. Uranium has shown up in the layers of turtles’ and ...

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.