The sea creature arrived at San Diego's Birch Aquarium in 2014 Ingrid Vasquez is a Digital News Writer at PEOPLE. She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor in Journalism.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The shells of chelonians—think turtles, tortoises, and sea turtles—grow in layers, keeping a time-stamped record of environmental conditions. Uranium has shown up in the layers of turtles’ and ...

Turtles and tortoises are reptiles with hard, protective shells, but they differ significantly in habitat, anatomy, and lifestyle. Turtles are primarily aquatic or semi-aquatic, featuring streamlined ...

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 ...