Back Skilpad Afrikaans Schildkröten ALS ኤሊ Amharic Testudines AN कछुआ ANP سلحفاة Arabic فكرون ARY زحلفه ARZ Testudines AST Mikinakw ATJ
| Testudines | |
|---|---|
| |
| Florida box turtle (Terrapene carolina) | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Perichelydia |
| Order: | Testudines Batsch 1788 [2] |
| Subgroups | |
|
Cryptodira | |
| Diversity | |
| 14 living families with 356 species | |
| |
| Blue: sea turtles, black: land turtles | |
Turtles are one of the many reptiles on earth. They have a hard shell, which is useful for camouflage and protection from other animals.
There are two types of turtles: side-necked turtles and hidden neck turtles. Side-necked turtles have long necks, but hidden neck turtles have very small necks.
There are about 356 species of turtles living on land in all continents except Antarctica. They can live in both salt water and fresh water.
Testudines (which includes turtles) includes both living and extinct kinds. The earliest fossil of a turtle was found in China from the early Upper Triassic age. The fossil was from about 220 million years ago. Turtles are one of the oldest reptiles that are not extinct. Turtles have been on earth for longer than lizards, snakes and crocodiles. Turtles come from ancient turtles, which had spiked shells.
Turtles are almost everywhere in the world. A lot of the turtle species alive today are endangered.[3]
- ↑ Li, Chun; Xiao-Chun Wu; Olivier Rieppel; Li-Ting Wang; Li-Jun Zhao (November 27, 2008). "An ancestral turtle from the Late Triassic of southwestern China". Nature. 456 (7221): 497–501. Bibcode:2008Natur.456..497L. doi:10.1038/nature07533. PMID 19037315. S2CID 4405644.
- ↑ Turtle Taxonomy Working Group (2017). Turtles of the World: Annotated Checklist and Atlas of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status (8th Ed.) (PDF). Vol. 7. pp. 1–292. doi:10.3854/crm.7.checklist.atlas.v8.2017. ISBN 9781532350269.
{{cite book}}:|journal=ignored (help) - ↑ James E. Barzyk Turtles in crisis: the Asian food markets. The article itself is not dated, but mostly refers to data in the range 1995–2000.