This one-ton turtle once ruled South America’s rivers — until a changing planet proved too much for even the largest ...

A 260 million-year-old fossil has been determined to be the oldest ancestor of turtles found to date, revealing something about the reptile's mysterious past. Michelle Starr is CNET's science editor, ...

In today's turtles the shell has a key protective function. The animals can withdraw into it and protect themselves against predators. No other group of vertebrates has modified its physique to such ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 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 ...

When Ann Berry Somers was 7 years old and growing up in North Carolina, she encountered a box turtle on a path. She picked up the small reptile and looked into its eyes. Instead of retreating into its ...

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 ...

Loggerhead sea turtles migrate thousands of miles through the world’s oceans, but they don’t travel solo—research shows they carry surprisingly diverse and abundant populations of tiny creatures on ...