All About Turtles
- Carapace
- top shell, an outgrowth of bone.
- Flippers
- pond turtle has flat feet, webbed toes for digging in mud, tearing food, courtship, sea turtle has broad flippers for swimming.
- Plastron
- bottom shell
- Scutes
- scales over both shells, made of keratin like your fingernails
- Neck
- pond turtle can fold neck into its shell in S-shape, sea turtle can't
- Nostrils
- near the top of head so turtle won't have to stick head far out of water to breathe
- Beak
- no teeth, but jagged beak catches, holds, and slices food
- Ears
- no outside parts to slow it down underwater
