As a budding naturalist growing up in the concrete-heavy environs of Boston, I would regularly thumb through my family’s collection of nature books and daydream about the creatures within. One species ...

Cartoons often suggest turtles wear shells like removable armor. Those stories show turtles stepping out, swapping shells, or treating them like clothing. Biology disagrees. A turtle shell is not an ...

Imagine that your body is 10 times the size of your limbs. Each of your four legs are short, thick, round and tipped with long narrow claws. Your body is also your home that you carry around with you ...

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 ...

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 ...