The turtle shell is a highly complicated shield for the ventral and dorsal parts of the turtle, completely enclosing all the vital organs of the turtle and in some cases even the head. It is constructed of modified bony elements such as the ribs, parts of the pelvis and other bones found in most reptiles. Therefore turtles have no backs. The bone of the shell consists of both skeletal and dermal bone, showing that the complete enclosure of the shell probably evolved by including dermal armor into the rib cage.
The shell of the turtle is an important study, not just because of the obvious protection it provides for the animal, but also as an identification tool, in particular with fossils as the shell is one of the likely parts of a turtle to survive fossilization. Hence understanding the structure of the shell in living species gives us comparable material with fossils.
Read more about Turtle Shell: Shell Nomenclature, Carapace, Plastron, Scutes, See Also, External Links
Famous quotes containing the words turtle and/or shell:
“My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one,
and come away.
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;”
—Bible: Hebrew The Song of Solomon (l. II, 10–12)
“We want some coat woven of elastic steel, stout as the first, and limber as the second. We want a ship in these billows we inhabit. An angular, dogmatic house would be rent to chips and splinters, in this storm of many elements. No, it must be tight, and fit to the form of man, to live at all; as a shell is the architecture of a house founded on the sea.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)