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 ...

Techniques developed to study the distant past—from dating ancient artifacts to reconstructing climate records in ice cores—are now being repurposed to help us better understand the lives of modern ...

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, ...