Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 11, 2012

Potty Mouth! Turtle Dips Head in Puddles to Pee

Soft-shelled turtles from China can essentially expel pee from their mouths, researchers say. This odd ability may have helped them invade salty environments, researchers explained. Scientists investigated the Chinese soft-shelled turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis). These turtles are often found in brackish swamps and marshes. Intriguingly, these reptiles submerge their heads in...

Oct 19, 2012

Sea Turtles Make Strong Showing in Florida

Loggerhead sea turtles are nesting along Florida's beaches in strong numbers this year, according to researchers with the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). This year, surveyors counted 58,172 loggerhead nests along nearly 250 miles of Florida's coastline. The FWC said this is one of the highest counts since...

Oct 29, 2012

Do All Turtles Have Shells?

While most turtles sport a hard, protective shell on their backs, leatherback sea turtles have their bony protection embedded under their skin and oily flesh. Hence the name… Most turtle shells are made of scutes, or hard, bony plates outside the turtle's skin, but the leatherback has mini-plates underneath its...

Oct 30, 2012

Jurassic Turtle Graveyard Found in China

Scientists say they've uncovered a pile of 1,800 Jurassic turtle skeletons in China that had been swept into a mass grave millions of years ago. The fossilized mesa chelonia turtles were found in China’s northwest province of Xinjiang in what paleontologists call a bone bed with some of the shells...

Nov 7, 2012

Sandy's Surge Hit Baby Sea Turtle Boom

As Hurricane Sandy roared up the East Coast, it threatened to disturb the best loggerhead turtle nesting season on record. Florida, South Carolina and Georgia all reported baby booms, with more nests than ever since the states began tracking turtles in the 1980s. North Carolina had its third highest year,...

Jan 17, 2013

Desert Tortoises Can Hear Better Underwater

Desert tortoises, as their name suggests, don't encounter many large bodies of water. But surprisingly, all turtles, even desert tortoises, can hear better underwater, recent research finds. If a desert tortoise decided to stick its head underwater, it could hear better, said Katie Willis, a University of Maryland doctoral student...

Feb 6, 2013

Goo Lets Turtle Moms Pause Eggs' Growth

Pregnant turtles hit the pause button on their eggs' development until the time is just right to lay them in a nest, researchers say. The careful moms do this by producing a gooey substance in their reproductive tracts that cuts oxygen to the embryos, a study shows. Female turtles must...

Feb 27, 2013

Pacific Leatherback Turtles' Alarming Decline Continues

The Pacific leatherback turtle's last population stronghold could disappear within 20 years if conservation efforts aren't expanded, a new study finds. Most of the Pacific Ocean's leatherback turtles, at least 75 percent, lay their eggs at Bird's Head Peninsula in Papua Barat, Indonesia. The number of leatherback turtle nests at...

Apr 4, 2013

Is This Turtle Extinct? Nope, It Just Never Existed

A species of freshwater turtle found on the Seychelles was thought to be extinct for more than 100 years but now scientists are taking back that ruling. No, they didn't find any sneaky holdouts on the tiny Indian Ocean islands. Rather, a genetic analysis of a specimen at the Natural...

Apr 30, 2013

Green Sea Turtles Use Protected Areas, Study Finds

If you protect it, they will use it. Green sea turtles do actually make use of protected areas to nest and feed, according to a study that tracked female turtles that came ashore to lay eggs in Florida's Dry Tortugas National Park. Until now, it wasn't clear where these green...

May 7, 2013

Poaching Pushes 2 Madagascar Tortoises to Brink

Things just got much worse for two critically endangered tortoise species in Madagascar. Illegal poaching is raging out of control and pushing radiated and ploughshare tortoises to the brink of extinction, according to a statement from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). More than 1,000 of the animals have been confiscated...

May 20, 2013

Costa Rica Has a Sea Turtle Egg-Poaching Problem

Besides being beautiful, Costa Rica's beaches are the nesting sites of four endangered sea turtle species, which return each year to lay their eggs. But there is trouble in paradise for these reptiles, namely, from egg thieves. Since 1996, it's been illegal to remove turtle eggs from beaches in Costa...

May 29, 2013

Endangered Sea Turtles Feed in Potentially Hazardous Parts of Gulf of Mexico

The endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle has been found feeding in the Gulf of Mexico, in waters threatened by oil spills, heavy commercial fishing and oxygen depletion. The Kemp's ridley turtle is the most endangered and smallest hard-shelled sea turtle in the world. A new study released jointly by the...

May 31, 2013

How Turtles Got Their Shells

Turtle shells, which turn out to be complex structures made up of 50 bones, evolved long before dinosaurs roamed the earth, according to new research. Turtles and their shells now predate the Jurassic period, according to a study in the latest issue of Current Biology. It’s a body design that...

Jun 7, 2013

Light Pollution Deters Nesting Sea Turtles

Light pollution along the Mediterranean is changing the nesting habits of sea turtles in Israel, according to new research. Orbital pictures of the region, coupled with sea turtle nesting data from Israel's National Parks Authority, revealed that the species of turtles in that area cluster their nests in darker spots....