![]() ![]() Other things turtles like to eat are small aquatic animals, such as frogs and salamanders. Turtles like to eat fish, jellyfish, carrion and plant material. Most turtles, however, are omnivores, eating both animals and plants. Some turtles are carnivores, while others follow a strictly vegetarian diet. What turtles eat depends greatly on the type of turtle and its natural habitat. Turtles do not have teeth, instead they possess a sharp beak that enables them to tear their food. ![]() ![]() The skin flaps allow vibrations and low-frequency sounds in the ear canal - so the turtles can hear to some extent, but their hearing isn’t sensitive. They have thin flaps of skin covering internal ear bones. Turtles don’t have any “outer ear,” the part that sticks out from your head, but they have all the “inner ear”. Turtles have color vision with a wealth of cone subtypes with sensitivities ranging from the near ultraviolet (UVA) to red. Turtles are thought to have exceptional night vision due to the unusually large number of rod cells in their retinas. Turtles have good eyesight and an excellent sense of smell. Turtles are cold-blooded reptiles – their internal temperature varies according to the ambient environment. The skin of a turtle especially the land tortoises, may look leathery and tough, but it is actually very sensitive. The shell’s top is called the carapace, and the bottom is the plastron. Of all the animals with backbones, turtles are the only ones that also have a shell, made up of 59 to 61 bones covered by plates called scutes, which are made of keratin like our fingernails. It measures no more than 8 centimeters (3.1 inches) in length and weighs about 140 grams (4.9 ounces). The smallest turtle is the speckled tortoise ( Homopus signatus) of South Africa. It can grow to over 130 centimeters (51 inches) in length, and weigh about 300 kilograms (660 pounds). The Galapagos Islands are home to the largest terrestrial species, Galapagos tortoise ( Chelonoidis nigra). The largest leatherback recorded weighed 916 kilograms (2,019 pounds). Mature leatherbacks reach about 1.2 to 1.9 meters (3.9-6.2 feet) and 200 to 506 kilograms (441 to 1,116 pounds). The largest turtle is the leatherback sea turtle ( Dermochelys coriacea). Adwaita, an Aldabra giant tortoise that died in 2006 in the Alipore Zoological Gardens of Kolkata, India, is believed to have lived to the age of 255 years. For example, a typical pet turtle can live between 10-80 years or so while larger species can easily live over 100 years. The lifespan of a turtle varies greatly depending on the species of turtle. They are one of the oldest reptile groups, more ancient group than snakes or crocodilians. Turtles are a very old group of reptiles, going back about 220 million years. ![]()
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