Facts about Turtles
- 09
Softshell turtles possess leathery skin instead of a hard shell and can absorb oxygen directly through their skin, allowing them to stay submerged for months without surfacing to breathe.
- 08
Leatherback turtles possess a specialized countercurrent heat exchange system in their flippers that allows them to maintain body temperatures 5 to 14 degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding ocean water.
- 07
Painted turtles can survive being frozen solid with up to 70 percent of their body water turning to ice, then thaw and resume normal activity in spring.
- 06
Certain freshwater turtles can breathe through their skin and intestines, extracting up to 60 percent of their oxygen needs without using their lungs during winter dormancy.
- 05
The tuatara, a reptile often mistaken for a lizard, shares more genetic similarities with turtles than with modern snakes or lizards, diverging from the turtle lineage approximately 250 million years ago.
- 04
A box turtle's shell can contain over 50 bones fused together with cartilage, creating a structure that accounts for approximately 20 percent of its total body weight.
- 03
Female leatherback turtles can lay up to 2,000 eggs across multiple clutches in a single breeding season, though only about one in 1,000 hatchlings survive to adulthood.
- 02
Sea turtles can hold their breath for up to seven hours while hibernating on the ocean floor during winter months.
- 01
Over 200 million years ago, turtles evolved their distinctive shells, making them older than snakes, crocodiles, and most dinosaur lineages.