Tortoise

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Introduction1

Thera Planet (YouTube Channel)

Dictionary

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

Occupation

Sam Noble Museum (YouTube Channel)
Sam Noble Museum (Official Website)

How to be a Herpetologist (Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles)

Zoologists and Wildlife Biologists (CareerOneStop, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration)

Organization

World Congress of Herpetology
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
The Herpetologists’ League

American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
Zoological Association of America
Association of Zoos and Aquariums

Event

World Turtle Day, May 23 (American Tortoise Rescue)

News

Journal of Herpetology (Society for Study of Amphibians and Reptiles)
Herpetologica (The Herpetologists’ League)
Ichthyology & Herpetology (American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists)
Herpetology (Nature)

Tortoise (EurekaAlert, American Association for the Advancement of Science)
Tortoise (bioRxiv: Preprint Server for Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Tortoises (JSTOR)
Tortoise (Science Daily)
Tortoise (Science News)
Tortoise (Phys.org)
Tortoise (NPR Archives)


More News …

Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine.

  • Scientists unlock evolution of gigantism in...
    on May 28, 2026 at 10:00 am

    A new study of British wrens has provided new insights into the inner workings of "island syndromes," according to research led by the University of Birmingham. The paper, published in the Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society, reveals that different subspecies of island wrens are evolving independently, with the team finding particularly strong evidence of "island gigantism" in two of the studied populations.

  • This tiny blue octopus from the Galápagos could...
    on May 25, 2026 at 1:00 am

    The Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador are home to more than a thousand plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth—things like marine iguanas and giant tortoises. In a new paper in the journal Zootaxa, scientists have announced the discovery of the newest animal found in the Galápagos: a tiny blue octopus.

  • Self‑destructive behavior among Hermann's...
    on May 10, 2026 at 6:30 pm

    On the strictly protected island of Golem Grad in North Macedonia, the tortoises are destroying their own population. During prolonged courtship, aggressive males are exhausting the females and frequently pushing them off the cliffs. Consequently, there are now one hundred males for every female capable of laying eggs. This is the only known example of demographic suicide in the wild to date.

  • A new way to plan trajectories to asteroids
    on May 1, 2026 at 5:20 pm

    There are tens of thousands of near-Earth objects (NEOs) that represent some of the most easily accessible resources in the solar system. Planning trajectories to rendezvous with these miniature worlds is notoriously difficult, and requires a massive amount of computational power to calculate. But a new paper from astrodynamicist Alessandro Beolchi of Khalifa University of Science and Technology and his co-authors offers a much less computationally intensive way to find these trajectories, and […]

  • Bird and tortoise fossil tracks on South Africa's...
    on April 16, 2026 at 8:00 pm

    The south coast of South Africa's Western Cape province is a rich source of fossil tracks and traces—clues suggesting what this environment may have been like many thousands of years ago.

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Related

Here are links to pages about closely related subjects.

Knowledge Realm

Terrestrial   (Earth)

Sphere Land, Ice, Water (Ocean), Air, Life (Cell, Gene)
Ecosystem Forest, Grassland, Desert, Arctic, Aquatic

Tree of Life
Microorganism Virus
Prokaryote Archaea, Bacteria
Eukaryote Protist, Fungi, Algae, Protozoa (Tardigrade)
Plant Flower, Tree
Animal
Invertebrate
Cnidaria Coral, Jellyfish
Cephalopod Cuttlefish, Octopus
Crustacean Lobster, Shrimp
Arachnid Spider, Scorpion
Insect Ant, Bee, Beetle, Butterfly
Vertebrate
Fish Seahorse, Ray, Shark
Amphibian Frog, Salamander
Reptile Turtle, Tortoise, Dinosaur
Bird Penguin, Ostrich, Owl, Crow, Parrot
Mammal Platypus, Bat, Mouse, Rabbit, Goat, Giraffe, Camel, Horse, Elephant, Mammoth
Walrus, Seal, Polar Bear, Bear, Panda, Cat, Tiger, Lion, Dog, Wolf
Cetacean Whale, Dolphin
Primate Monkey, Chimpanzee, Human

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Notes

1.   The resources on this page are are organized by a classification scheme developed exclusively for Cosma.