Every young boy has spent at least one afternoon digging a hole in the ground looking for some kind of treasure. An eight-year-old from South Africa was doing just that when he unearthed a turtle ...

Turtles have shells that they can hide inside of when they feel like they’re in danger or when they are feeling anti-social and want everything around them to disappear. On the other hand, do turtles ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Turtle shells didn’t get their start as natural armor, it seems. The reptiles’ ancestors might have evolved partial shells to help them burrow instead, new research suggests. Only later did the hard ...

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.