Turtles. tortoises and terrapins are very interesting creatures, they may all look the same. but if you look closer there are small differences, that can determine what each one is.
Some Fun Facts
Turtles, terrapin, and tortoises are reptiles, they all have round oval shaped hard shells, and all the animals lay eggs. They move around slowly.
The main difference between turtles and tortoises and the Terrapins is the habitat. Tortoises mainly live on land, and the turtles live an aquatic life and only come on land to lay eggs. Another member of the turtle family is the terrapin, which lives in and around fresh or brackish waters.
They are all cold-blooded animals and so are ectothermic, they can not regulate their own body temperatures, they need to use external sources, like basking in the sun or sitting on heated surfaces to regulate their body temperature.
They all have a hard shell the shell on the top is called a carapace, and the shell on the bottom is called a plastron. Many can hide their head in the shell, to protect themselves from predators. Turtles have slightly flatter and streamlined shell to help them swim faster.
Turtles have web feet some turtle has long feet like flippers, this helps them to swim. The tortoise lives on land so it has stumpy and more rounded feet. The terrapin has a flatter feet like that of a turtle as it lives both in water and on land.
Diet of a turtle can depend on the species, they can be solely (carnivores) meat eaters or plant eaters or can be both. The land tortoise is mainly herbivore eating plant-based food. The terrapin depending on the species is an omnivore likes to eat meat based food, they will also eat plant-based food as well.
Turtles will swim hundreds of miles to come ashore to lay their eggs, The temperature of the incubating eggs will determine whether an offspring will be female or male. Incubating the eggs in Higher temperatures will result in a female offspring and in lower temperatures, it will result in a male offspring. The gender is temperature-dependent. This is said to be true with the eggs of the tortoise and the Terrapins.
