Talk:Turtle

Archive 1

Why is it locked?

There are some pretty major errors in this article which I would be happy to correct were it not locked. For example, the writers seem to be unable to distinguish between Turtles, Terrapins and Tortoises. I don't know about the US but in the UK, Aus, South Africa, New Zealand and India they have different names because they are DIFFERENT SPECIES. It's laughable to see a picture of a tortoise with the caption 'turtle in Czech Republic'. It's like having a picture of a dog with the caption 'sea lion in Czech Republic.'

If you don't know already

Tortoises - Entirely land based

Terrapins - Amphibious with stumpy legs

Turtles - Aquatic with flippers, but somewhat amphibious

—Preceding unsigned comment added by MrJaggers (talk • contribs)

Unfortunately, this article seems to be a magnet for school-kids adding nonsense and other vandalism...every time we try unprotecting, the problem reoccurs, in a pattern going back years:( However, it's only semi-protected, so as soon as you are autoconfirmed, you can edit the article. DMacks (talk) 21:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, your "definitions" are wrong. Mokele (talk) 00:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

They were only general definitions in layman's terms silly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.173.216.26 (talk) 14:12, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

They're wrong for the layman's terms, or at least the last two are. Leg length has nothing to do with it. See the page terrapin for a nice chart. Mokele (talk) 16:09, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Minor typo needs to be fixed...

In the third paragraph: "have higher body temperature than surrounding water since their high metabolic rate." The word "since: should probably be changed to "due to".

Land turtles and water

Can land turtles swim, or at least float? What happens if they fall in water? Danceswithzerglings (talk) 12:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Habitat

According to the picture, the range of land turtles includes southern Newfoundland. This is not so, as Newfoundland has no indigenous land turtles.

Hatching?

how long does it take for turtle eggs to hatch —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.163.208.81 (talk) 21:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Varies from species to species. oknazevad (talk) 18:21, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Vernacular use of "tortoise"

In terms of recent edits, I'm unaware of any animal called a "tortoise" in common terms that isn't *actually* a member of Testudinidae, at least within US english, which is what the sentence under dispute is about. Unless there is an example, it should be reverted to prior form. Mokele (talk) 13:20, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

What about box tortoises, which aren't in Testudinidae? When I referred to "common speech", I wasn't speaking of common names of particular species, I was referring to an American non-specialist seeing a shelled reptile on land. He's most likely to say "there's a turtle", but he's not going to check which species it is before calling it a "tortoise", because in common speech (as opposed to common names of particular species), all fully land-based (as opposed to semi-aquatic) turtles are called tortoises. oknazevad (talk) 19:54, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone refer to box turtles as tortoises - IME, I've only ever heard "tortoise" used for actual tortoises, though people often call them "turtles" (which is also technically correct). If you can find a citable source of someone using tortoise for a box turtle, then we should make the change, but I seriously doubt it - even the extremely ignorant would just default to "turtle" for all chelonians. Mokele (talk) 23:54, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

"A box turtle is one among the different species of turtles and is also known as the box tortoise. The specialty of this tortoise is that it possesses a large dome shaped shell which has a movable hinge on its lower part." (Emphases mine.) Taken from the pet care article here. I think it proves my point, as a pet care source would be more knowledgable and accurate than an average layman, but not as rigorous as a biologist, exactly the sort of middle ground I was referring to.oknazevad (talk) 00:47, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Huh, I guess people really are that stupid. Well, go ahead and change it back to your version. Mokele (talk) 03:22, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not "stupid" it's just the difference between technical writing and informal, common usage. Not everyone is an expert, and Wikipedia is as much descriptive as prescriptive, that is it describes what people do. oknazevad (talk) 03:52, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the point here is that the article does not make a clear distinction between a turtle and a tortoise. I defer to experts to explain, but it seems to me that a tortoise lives its life almost exclusively on land. --74.107.74.39 (talk) 22:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Pending changes

This article is one of a small number (about 100) selected for the first week of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

However with only a few hours to go, comments have only been made on two of the pages.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially.

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 20:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC).

Flipping over

Maybe I missed it, but turtles are usually unable to flip over when they end up on their backs, right? Tisane ^talk/_stalk 18:49, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Turtle anatomy

If you are interrested :

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Titimaster (talk • contribs) 18:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Could this page be called 'Chelonians' or 'Testudines'?

Wouldn't it make sense for the 'turtle' page to refer to actual turtles (aka sea turtles in the US), to avoid confusion? Chelonian is a name which can refer to the order in all English speaking countries, whereas it's only in the US that the word turtle is used in this way. It could be noted on the turtle page that they are called 'Sea turtles' in the US.--Jcvamp (talk) 15:27, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Um, "turtle" in the US and other english-speaking nations refers to more than just sea turtles. Mokele (talk) 16:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, it to be a particular Britishism to reserve the word "turtle" to just the sea-going species. In general, throughout the English speaking world, "turtle" is used as a generic descriptor of all shelled reptiles. Which is why this is the parent article for all shelled reptiles, and why it already includes a section on the varying usages of "turtle", "tortoise" and "terrapin".oknazevad (talk) 16:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

We have a template to warn that an article doesn't represent a worldwide view of the subject, yet we've gone with the North American usage for the title to this article. Testudines would be much better and more neutral. The article itself states that Australians use the word tortoise for the land animal, so "throughout the English speaking world, "turtle" is used as a generic descriptor of all shelled reptiles" seems inaccurate. I'd propose gathering more views from other Wikipedians. 193.0.104.224 (talk) 15:07, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to support the renaming of this page to Chelonians. Is there a template to facilitate a discussion on it? Dislogical (talk) 23:45, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

The problem with "Testudines" is that its simply an uncommon term used mostly by those "in the know", and runs full afoul of WP:COMMONNAME. As for "neutrality" concerns, I don't see what's non-neutral about using a common term for the title of a main article that already covers the regional differences in the usage. oknazevad (talk) 21:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Even as a native UK-English speaker, I prefer the current name of "Turtle" Bluap (talk) 00:06, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Anatomy and morphology

In this section, some of the largest and smallest turtles are mentioned however, the bog turtle is left out!!! It usually reaches four inches (rarely much more than that).--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 17:19, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

What gall! If only there were a way for people to change what is on the web page.  ;-) TCO (talk) 04:56, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Turtle, tortoise, or terrapin

This section cites no source, aside from the etymology of the word "terrapin." Does anyone have a reference for this before it get eliminated? ViniTheHat (talk) 18:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

No references here. The (mis)usage seems borderline colloquialism. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm adding one from the San Diego Zoo. Eliminating this would be a severe mistake. While common usage may not be as precise as scientific usage, it's not incorrect. We must be cautious not to fall into a prescriptivist trap. oknazevad (talk) 20:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Lifespan?

Save for a passing use of the adjective "centenarian", there seems to be no explicit mention of some species' notoriously long lifespan. Perhaps this could be added to the 'ecology and life history' section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.245.70.191 (talk) 00:40, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

What are calipash and calipee?

The terms "calipash" and "calipee" redirect here, but there is no explanation as to why, nor any other mention of them. What do they mean, and how do they relate to turtles? 69.255.171.55 (talk) 02:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Try using Google - the first 8 links all give definitions of calipash. Bluap (talk) 01:22, 11 February 2012 (UTC)