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.

With hard bony shells to shelter and protect them, turtles are unique and have long posed a mystery to scientists who wonder how such an elegant body structure came to be. Since the age of dinosaurs, ...

A sea turtle’s shell is living bone fused directly to its spine and ribs. It is not a detachable shield or an external case, as certain quirky cartoons have shown. The shell grows with the turtle, ...

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 ...

An 11-year-old rock hunter has uncovered an almost complete turtle shell dating to roughly 48 million years ago. That intact shell secured a rare glimpse into a vanished river world before weather ...

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 ...