The Tortoise's Living Habits and Their Descriptions
Turtles are scaly quadrupeds which belong to the reptile group. This particular animal is easy to recognize by the presence of its hard and stiff "bony shell" shell.
Tortoise Living Habits
Tortoise shell consists of two parts, namely:
The upper part that covers the back is called the carapace carapace.
And for the lower part is the ventral or abdomen called the plastron.
Each of these parts consists of 2 layers, namely:
Outer layers are generally in the form of large, hard scales and arranged like a tile.
The inner layer is in the form of bone plates which are arranged tightly like a shell.
But in this case not all types of turtles have scales. In the "Trionychoidea" turtle-type turtle and leatherback turtle, the outer layer is not scaly and is replaced by a layer of skin on the outside of the bone shell.
See the Core List:
Evolution in Turtles
The second oldest tortoise fossil dating from the Triassic period, some 210 million years ago, namely Proganochelys has been shaped similar to turtles today.
Only for the difference in the part of the bones in the back that have not been so wide and have not all joined together to form a perfect shell.
In ancient turtles lived and developed in the same era as dinosaurs. Archelon for example is a giant turtle whose body diameter can reach more than 4 meters. The oldest fossil turtle found to date is Odontochelys, dating from around 220 million years ago. For the size of the tortoise's body, there are various kinds of small and large ones. Usually indicated by the length of the carapace.
The biggest tortoise is a leatherback turtle whose carapace can reach a length of around 300 cm. The largest turtles are irian turtles, with carapace lengths of around 51 inches. Giant tortoises from the Galapagos Islands and Seychelles Islands can exceed 50 inches in length.
While the smallest is a mini turtle from South Africa, whose carapace length does not exceed about 8 cm. This turtle is one type of animal that has a long life. This reptile can live for decades, even a tortoise from the Seychelles Islands was recorded living for 152 years "1766 to 1918".
Tortoise Living Habits
There are several turtle living habits which include:
Basically, turtles can live in various places, ranging from desert areas, grasslands, forests, swamps, rivers and the sea. However, most species live entirely in aquatic ecosystems, both in fresh water and in the ocean.
There are turtles that are herbivorous plant eaters, carnivorous meat eaters or "omnivorous" mixed eaters.
Turtles do not have teeth, but bone pavement in the snout's snout is able to cut anything that becomes food.
Many species of living turtles now are able to hide their heads, legs and tails in their shells, so they can save themselves. But some primitive turtles, such as sea turtles, cannot pull in their limbs.
Turtles reproduce by laying "Ovipar" eggs once laying can produce several eggs (in tortoises) to more than one hundred eggs (in some types of turtles). The eggs are usually placed on a sandbank on the banks of a river or sea, to then be hoarded and left to hatch with the help of the sun's heat. Turtle eggs hatch after about 2 months (50-70 days) stored in the sand.
And for the sex of the child turtle that will be born one of them is determined by the temperature of the sand where the eggs are stored. In most species of turtles, temperatures above average will produce female tortoises. And conversely temperatures below the average tend to produce a lot of male turtles.