Tortoise

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tortoise : any of a family (Testudinidae) of terrestrial turtles — Merriam-Webster See also OneLook

Encyclopedia

Tortoises are a family, Testudinidae. Testudinidae is a Family under the order Testudines and suborder Cryptodira. There are fourteen extant families of the order Testudines, an order of reptile commonly known as turtles, tortoises, and terrapins. The suborder Cryptodira is a suborder of Testudines that includes most living tortoises and turtles. Cryptodira differ from Pluerodia in that they lower their necks and pull the heads straight back into the shells, instead of folding their necks sideways along the body under the shells’ marginals. The testudines are some of the most ancient reptiles alive. — Wikipedia

Tortoise (Encyclopædia Britannica)

Tortoises (One Zoom)
Testudines (Catalogue of Life)
Tortoise (WolframAlpha)

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Innovation

Science

Herpetology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians) and reptiles (including snakes, lizards, amphisbaenids, turtles, terrapins, tortoises, crocodilians, and the tuataras). Birds, which are cladistically included within Reptilia, are traditionally excluded here; the scientific study of birds is the subject of ornithology. Thus, the definition of herpetology can be more precisely stated as the study of ectothermic (cold-blooded) tetrapods. Under this definition “herps” (or sometimes “herptiles” or “herpetofauna”) exclude fish, but it is not uncommon for herpetological and ichthyological scientific societies to collaborate. — Wikipedia

Herpetology (Encyclopædia Britannica)

126 Questions with Answers in Herpetology (Research Gate)

Why do Tortoises Live So Long? It’s the Shell (Big Think)

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Preservation

Conservation

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Wildlife Protection Solutions (YouTube Channel)
Wildlife Protection Solutions (Official Website)

Turtle Conservancy (Official Website)
Turtle Conservancy (YouTube Channel)
Turtle Conservancy (Wikipedia)

Tortoises (Defenders of Wildlife)

Library

DDC: 597.92 Tortoise (Library Thing)
Subject: Tortoise (Library Thing)

Subject: Tortoise (Open Library)

LCC: QL 666.C5 Tortoise (UPenn Online Books)
Subject: Tortoise (UPenn Online Books)

LCC: QL 666.C5 Tortoise (Library of Congress)
Subject: Tortoise (Library of Congress)

Subject: Tortoise (WorldCat)

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Participation

Education

MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
OER Commons: Open Educational Resources

Community

More News …

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World's oldest known tortoise still very much...
on April 2, 2026 at 2:00 pm
Reports on April Fools' Day of the death of the world's oldest living land animal—a 193-year-old tortoise called Jonathan—were greatly exaggerated.
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on April 2, 2026 at 2:50 am
Researchers at the University of Manchester have used artificial intelligence to uncover a complex picture behind England's long-running productivity puzzle, challenging the idea that the country's economic performance can be explained by a simple North-South divide. In a major study published in the Spatial Economic Analysis journal, Professor Cecilia Wong and Dr. Helen Zheng applied "GeoAI" techniques—combining geography and artificial intelligence—to analyze how productivity varies […]
Ice Age animals and slice of Earth history found...
on March 26, 2026 at 1:20 am
A paleontologist from The University of Texas at Austin has discovered the fossilized remains of Ice Age animals that have never been found in Central Texas before—and he came across the bones while snorkeling for fossils in an underground stream. The new fossils are from a giant tortoise and an armadillo relative called a pampathere that was about the size of a lion.
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on March 25, 2026 at 9:00 pm
History can sometimes take an unexpected turn. One of these curious, revolutionary twists came in the mid-19th century, when the tale of an unassuming everyday object—the billiard ball—ended in cinematic proportions.
The Mojave Desert is a hot spot for off-roading:...
on February 26, 2026 at 12:40 pm
The desert tortoise, a once-resilient reptile, is a keystone species in the Mojave Desert, where other animals depend for their survival on the burrows it digs. But it is imperiled in California thanks in part to an unusual predator: off-road vehicles that race through thousands of miles of trails—official and unofficial—that crisscross millions of acres of tortoise habitat.