Tortoise
Scientific Classification of Tortoise
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Testudines
Family: Testudinidae
Tortoises are some of the oldest living animals on Earth and can live to be over 150 years old. Tortoises are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines. Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like other members of the suborder Cryptodira, they retract their necks and heads directly backward into the shell to protect them.Although from the same scientific order as sea turtles – Testudines – tortoises have longer life expectancy than sea turtles. The average life expectancy of tortoises is anywhere from 80 to 150 years. Some species are known to live even longer, up to 250 years.
Tortoises have more rounded and domed shells where turtles have thinner, more water-dynamic shells. Turtle shells are more streamlined to aid in swimming. One major key difference is that tortoises spend most of their time on land and turtles are adapted for life spent in water.
Many species of tortoises are sexually dimorphic, though the differences between males and females vary from species to species. In some species, males have a longer, more protruding neck plate than their female counterparts, while in others, the claws are longer on the females.
The male plastron is curved inwards to aid reproduction. The easiest way to determine the sex of a tortoise is to look at the tail. The females, as a general rule, have smaller tails, dropped down, whereas the males have much longer tails which are usually pulled up and to the side of the rear shell.
Tortoises are placid and slow-moving, with an average walking speed of 0.2–0.5 km/h.
They live in diverse habitats, including deserts, arid grasslands, and scrub to wet evergreen forests, and from sea level to mountains.
Tortoise have both, both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton. They have an outer hard shell and a skeleton inside the body.
The exoskeleton (carapace and plastron) and the endoskeleton (internal bones). The endoskeleton consists of two main groups; the appendicular skeleton (limb bones and girdles) and the axial skeleton (ribs, vertebrae and skull).
The turtle shell is actually a peculiar evolution of a turtle's bone structure. Its vertebrae, pelvis, ribcage–it has no muscles between its ribs, which makes this easier–and other bones fuse together to form a sort of reptilian exoskeleton.
In tortoises, left over waste is expelled through the vent which is the reptile equivalent of the mammal's anus. The digestive tract of the tortoise consists of the mouth, stomach, intestines and vent. Tortoises have a beak like a bird, but no teeth.
Tortoises have very small brains. Tortoises lay eggs and females will bury their eggs to keep them safe from predators.
tortoises can lay fertile eggs up to four years after mating, although fertility reduces significantly after each season. After fertilisation the tiny eggs are segregated into clutches of two to twelve, depending on the species, then one clutch at a time are allowed to grow to full size.
Female tortoises have two ovaries which produce eggs; these are found inside the body near the kidneys. They also have two oviducts that are tubes along which the eggs are transported to the urodeum area of the vent. Tortoises tend to lay several hard eggs at a time.
a tortoise's heart pumps blood to all the vital organs and muscle groups, but a large amount of blood is also effectively send underneath the carapace to “warm up” before continuing to circulate around the body.
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Reptilia
Order:Testudines
Family: Emydidae
Genus: Trachemys
Species: T.scripta
The red-eared slider or red-eared terrapin is a subspecies of the pond slider, a semiaquatic turtle belonging to the family Emydidae.