turtle class

The boys participated in a museum class yesterday, turtles being the topic. The class was taught by two of the boys' favorite musuem teachers. Here Ms Rachael (the main squeeze in Zoo Boy's life) passes around a turtle for the kids to examine first-hand.


J shows off the flattened profile of his water turtle's shell, which, he tells me, causes less friction while swimming under water. He also pointed out that land turtles have domed shells, because they don't have to worry about friction, but they DO have to make sure there's enough room inside to contract into (to protect them from predators). Land turtles using hiding as their defense, while water turtles use speed. Pretty clever design, if you ask me!

Ms Sarah helps Zoo Boy put the finishing touches on his land turtle, while J looks on.








A top-side comparison of Zoo Boy's land turtle and J's water turtle. They boys pointed out that ALL turtles have 13 scutes (? the name for the shell scales?) on their shells. I never realized that, and shared my excitement at learning this fact with the boys. They also pointed out the difference in the feet between a walking land turtle and a swimming water turtle (J's turtle has webbed feet).

They then offered to flip their turtles over, and lo and behold, there are difference on the bottom of the shell too. Go figure!

So we all learned a lot about turtles!