It is common for the shell of a tortoise, in the wild, to show signs of everyday chips and knocks, both on the upper shell (carapace) and the lower shell (plastron).
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Tag shell
Cambodia Land Snail
The Cambodia Land Snail (Amphidromus atricallosus classiarius) is a tropical, air-breathing invertebrate gastropod mollusc in the Camaenidae family of arboreal (tree-living) pulmonate land snails. An invertebrate does not have a backbone and gastropod means stomach-footed.
The Cambodia Land Snail can be varied in colour, often quite colourful but a few species can be dark, with a smooth shell that can be thin and fragile or heavy and solid. Different species have different colours, and can have varied number of whorls, and the direction of the way its shell spirals. It can be dextral shell-coiling (right-handed) or sinistral shell-coiling (left-coiling). The photographed snail is sinistral with a heavy shell. It has 6-8 pale-coloured whorls. It has a large aperture. Its ‘foot’ (soft body) is brown.
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Russian Tortoise
The Russian Tortoise (Agrionemys horsfieldii) is a small chelonian reptile in the Testudinidae family. It is also known as the Afghan Tortoise, the Central Asian Tortoise, Horsfield’s Tortoise, the Steppe Tortoise, or the Four-Clawed Tortoise.
The Russian Tortoise can be various colours, but it usually has a brown or grey-black top dome-shaped shell, called a carapace. It has faded yellow-beige markings between its scutes (scales). It has a paler bottom shell, called a plastron. Its body is straw-yellow and brown. It has a small head and brown eyes. It has four toes on its thick, stumpy legs.
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Giant Isopod Crustacean
The Giant Isopod Crustacean (Bathynomus giganteus) is a deep-sea aquatic saltwater crustacean. It is related to the shrimp and the crab.
The Giant Isopod Crustacean is a decapod with 10 legs. It looks like a woodlouse because it has a hard exo-skeleton with overlapping segments. It can curl up into a ball. It has large compound eyes. It is pinkish or pale-lilac in colour.
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What is a bird’s egg tooth?
What is a bird’s egg tooth? How is it used when it hatches from its egg?
When a chick is ready to hatch out of its egg it must break the egg shell.
The chick has a small, sharp, white, projection on the tip of its beak, called an egg tooth.
It is not really a tooth. It is a hard piece of the beak’s tip.
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Sundial Sea Snail
The Sundial Sea Snail (Architectonica perspectiva) is a marine (saltwater) gastropod mollusc. It is also known as the Staircase Shell. Gastropod means stomach-footed.
The Sundial Sea Snail has a white to yellowish-brown cone-shaped shell, lighter at the edges, and lighter underneath. The spirals of the shell have shades of black, white, and brown. Its long thin body and tentacles are striped. It has a horny, dark-brown operculum. The operculum is attached at the muscle to the upper surface of the back part of the snail’s ‘foot.’
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Greek Tortoise
The Greek Tortoise (Testudo graeca graeca) is a small chelonian reptile. It is also known as the Spur-Thighed Tortoise.
The Greek Tortoise varies in colour and shell pattern, from dark-brown to bright yellow. The shell, called the carapace, is domed, and in some sub-species it bends upwards at the edges.
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Common Marine Hermit Crab
The Common Marine Hermit Crab (Pagurus bernhardus) is a saltwater aquatic decapod (10-armed) crustacean. It is also known as the Soldier Crab.
Hermit crabs include the Marine Hermit Crab, which lives in saltwater, and the Land Hermit Crab, which is terrestrial in tropical regions.
The Common Marine Hermit Crab is a crab inside a shell – its mobile home. It finds empty mollusc shells to live in. It has a long soft body – not like land crabs which have a hard exo-skeleton – which is why it looks for a hard shell to protect it. It can put its whole body inside the shell. As it grows, it looks for larger shells.
The Common Marine Hermit Crab has a spirally-curved soft body (abdomen) with a columella on the tip, which is used to hold onto the shell it occupies. It has 10 appendages (legs, called pereiopods), but two of them are claws, called nippers, pinchers, or chelipeds. Its large black compound eyes are at the end of an eyestalk. It has gills to breathe (like fish).
Golden Apple Snail
The Golden Apple Snail (Pomacea canaliculata) is a freshwater South American snail. It is an aquatic gastropod mollusc (mollusk). It is also called the Channeled Apple Snail.
The Golden Apple Snail has a boneless foot with a brown globe-shaped shell, called a mantle. It has both external gills (like a fish) on the right-hand side of its body to enable it to breathe underwater, and an internal lung on the left-hand side of its body (like a frog) to enable it to breath on land. This means that the Golden Apple Snail lives in the water and on land – it is amphibious, like a frog or a toad. It also has an operculum, which is a little lid, that enables it to close the shell entrance to prevent it from drying out when it is buried in the mud during dry seasons.
Fallacy: Tortoises will come out of their shell if they are frightened
Tortoises and turtles will come out of their shell if frightened. This is not true. This is a fallacy.
Actually, the reverse is true. Tortoises pull their head and feet into their shell so that predators cannot harm or eat them. They are too slow to run away, so hiding in their shell is their way of protecting themselves.
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Bull-Mouth Helmet Snail
The Bull-Mouth Helmet Snail (Cypraecassis rufa) is a large marine snail – a gastropod mollusk in the Cassidae family. It is also called a Cameo Shell.
The Bull-Mouth Helmet is a snail with its shell. The shell is shaped like a helmet. The shell is large, thick, and creamy-beige-coloured with a red-orange sheen. It is coiled with ridges (called varices) and bumps. It has a blunt knob at the narrow end (the anterior end). On the wide end (the posterior end), there is a spire and a protoconch. The shell has an orange-cream long, narrow opening.
The snail inside is a large muscular foot-shaped gastropod. The snail has a large head with eyes at the base of each of the two tentacles (like antennae).
Aldabra Giant Tortoise
The Aldabra Giant Tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantea) is a large reptile, a chelonian, from the remote Aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean.
The Aldabra Giant Tortoise has a grey-brown dome-shaped carapace (shell). It has a very long neck, and dark eyes. Its legs are short and stumpy, with flat feet – it is a slow mover.
Bell’s Hinge-Back Tortoise
The Bell’s Hinge-Back Tortoise (Kinixys belliana) is a reptile – it is medium-sized African chelonian.
The Bell’s Tortoise is a light brown colour. It has a hinge on the back of its top shell (carapace). It has a 90-degree hinge, which protects its back legs and tail. The hinge is a broad band of flexible connective tissue. The shell is slightly domed and elongated. It has five claws on each front foot.
What is a spiral?
What is a spiral?
A spiral is a curve that winds in a continuous and gradual widening around a central point.
African Helmeted Terrapin
The African Helmeted Terrapin (Pelomedusa subrufa) is also known as the Marsh Terrapin, the Crocodile Terrapin, or the African Side-Necked Terrapin. It is a semi-aquatic reptile from Africa, like tortoises and turtles – a chelonian.
The African Helmeted Terrapin looks like a helmet. Instead of its neck sticking in and out, it has a side-necked position where it places its head sideways in its shell. It black or brown shell (carapace) is slightly domed. Its tail and legs are grey-brown, and its underbelly is yellowish. The male has a long thick tail. The female has a shorter tail.
Freshwater Snail
The Freshwater Snail (Bithynia tentaculata) is a very small aquatic snail, which is also called the Faucet Snail. It is a gastropod.
The Freshwater Snail has a shiny, brown shell that looks like a cone on a simple clear-coloured foot. It has a thick lip. It has long tentacles. Like fish, it has gills to breath (not lungs).
Keratin
What is keratin?
Keratin is a strong, fibre-based protein material.
Keratin is found on amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles.
Keratin is the material in animal beaks, bills, claws, feathers, fingernails, hair, hooves, horns, scales, shells, talons, toenails, and wool. It is also in the outer layer of human skin.
Pancake Tortoise
The Pancake Tortoise (Malacochersus tornieri) is a flat-shelled tortoise from southern Kenya and northern Tanzania in east Africa. It is a reptile – a chelonian.
The Pancake Tortoise has a brown carapace (upper shell) with geometric patterns and a pale-yellow plastron (lower shell). The top shell is not domed like other tortoises. It is flat, thin, and flexible. Its head, legs, and tail are brown.
It is a fast mover – faster than the larger, domed tortoises. It is a good climber, and can climb over rocky ground. For protection against predators, it hides in crevices and gaps in rocky areas.
Flat as a pancake
The Pancake Tortoise has a shell that is as flat as a pancake.
Photographer: Martina Nicolls
Martina Nicolls: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
Giant African Land Snail
The Giant African Land Snail (Lissachatina fulica) is a large mollusk in the Achatinidae family.
They are macrophytophagous herbivores, which means that they eat a wide range of plant material, fruit, and vegetables.
The Giant African Land Snail can grow to 7 centimetres (2.8 inches) long. The shell is conical with colours that depend on the snail’s location, diet, and surroundings.