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 ...

Last year Anna Thonis, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University, launched a study of Long Island’s Eastern box turtles, a "species of special concern" in New York — not officially threatened ...

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 ...