#soft-shelled turtle

[godzillabbygirl]

Icons from Animal Crossing: New Horizons

water critters • green dudes • part 8 of 17

[fabfuta1234]

DinApril Day 7: Your (mother's) least favorite dinosaur.

Welcome to DinApril 2025, where instead of recycling my list from last year, I made my mom come up with the dinosaurs! Our seventh day features her least favorite dinosaur: Pentaceratops sternbergii! This male is tromping through the mud of the Kirtland Formation and has stopped to shake the mud off his foot. Three Trionyx robustus turtles skitter away from him in fear.

My mom's reason for not liking Pentaceratops is her belief that its frill is too long.

Coloration inspired by the Schleich Pentaceratops from 2014.

[aticketplz]

スッポンちゃん

石にブチギレてた　なにか気に触ることでもあったの

＠水環境館

He was happening to a stone living with him in a tank. what's wrong?

@Mizukankyokan

[nippongoto]

スッポン

ニホンかシナかは分かりません。美味しいのかな(私は食べたことが有りません)

R4.4

石垣島

[naocutie]

[ta260]

[encyclopika]

Animal Crossing Fish - Explained #74

Brought to you by a marine biologist who knows coming in second ain’t so bad...

CLICK HERE FOR THE AC FISH EXPLAINED MASTERPOST!

So, coming in second for our voting event was the Soft-Shelled Turtle. I honestly thought this buddy was gonna win, but y’all surprised me. It’s not rare, per se, but it’s not available for long, so get on it, fellow Northerners.

Now, we’ve gone over turtles before. ACNH has two other turtle friends you can catch/find, that being the Snapping Turtle, which you can fish for in the river, and the Archelon fossils. However, we never covered, like, the one thing that sets turtles apart from other vertebrates - the shell. It’s honestly a weird af adaptation to say the least, and we’re going to talk about it. This will get long because of it, but I hope you find this interesting, because it really is.

And when I say it’s weird, I really mean it. That shell and it’s evolution, as well as other turtle features, have been stumping evolutionary and phylogenetic biologists for a long ass time. No body really knew where to put turtles on the tree of life until relatively recently. Until then, it was hard to say whether the turtles belonged with the Archosaurs (crocodilians, birds, dinosaurs) or the Lepidosaurs (Lizards and Snakes). We now accept (at least for now!) that turtles belong in the former group. 

Turtles themselves are classified in one of two ways depending on how they retract their necks into their shells. The first group, Pleurodira, turn their heads to the side and it actually leaves their necks somewhat exposed. They can’t retract their neck neatly backwards like the second group, Cryptodira. And that’s where today’s turtle belongs. I’m fairly certain this is the Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis):

They’re native to China, as the name suggests. Like other Cryptodira turtles, the Chinese Soft-shell can retract its neck fully backwards into its shell, which is actually very soft, as the name also implies. It’s not hard and covered in bony scutes like other turtle shells. Instead it’s more leathery and yeah, it doesn’t really afford it as much protection as a harder shell might. However, the loss of armor means this turtle can actually run to escape predators. It also makes them much more hydrodynamic. Just another example of evolutionary trade-offs - armor or speed? Pick one, cuz ya ain’t gettin’ both. 

Turtle shells in general are kind of fascinating when you learn it’s simply the animal’s rib cage (which makes it insane the Cryptodiras can retract their neck back into it). So, please don’t think for a second a turtle can come out of its shell; you have no idea how many times I’ve had to answer that question. Look at this picture of a snapping turtle skeleton:

By Daderot - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8894607

The shell is the ribcage. The ribs evolved to be flat and bulky and at some point, the leathery skin we suspect covered it in ancient turtles became more calcified in most turtle species we see today. 

And there you have it. Fascinating stuff, no?

[noritama0301]

すっぽん道楽＠一宮