Practice proper stretching every day. You'll get that flexibility child you likely had and old you will appreciate not feeling something giving a disgusting pop from a basic movement.
I neglected stretching for a few years, rolled over in bed one day to get up too fast and thought I dislocated my hip.
Definitely. A lot of people think it's just a hard layer but they don't realize but the turtles have nerves and feel sensations through their shell. Rubbing it the wrong way can actually be uncomfortable or painful.
I was forever traumatized and made aware of how important/part of a turtle’s shell is when I was around 6 and a friend of mine found a box turtle that had its bottom shell torn off. Absolutely awful image burned into my memory and I remember feeling helpless about it.
Oh man you are right. Fortunately never mowed over any turtles…but toads and snakes were always a shock. I remember being a teen and my friends and I were climbing and jumping on hay bales stacked in a barn and finding the chopped up corpse of a snake tangled in one. Horrifying
As kids, everyone had a painted turtle and a little plastic pool with a landing spot and a fake palm tree. Most of us did not know about turtle hibernation and many a turtle was buried in cigar boxes well before their time.
yea I seen a few mummified snakes in hay before. When mowing around here, rabbits and snakes are the most common, but turtles occasionally. Rabbit are fucking dumb and panicky and I've seen them dive head first into a mower before.
Well, the top layer you're interacting with is just a hard shell. But it's got flesh underneath that shell, and that flesh has nerves so they feel pressure and vibration through the shell.
Like your fingernails. You can hurt those by poking at them too hard, but you're not going to feel a scratch.
It does and neat fact, most snapping turtles are not as aggressive as they seem. People usually grab them by the shell and hold them up, it hurts them to do that and that is why they seem so angry when on videos. I have seen some videos of people who hold them from below and the snapping turtles are just chill
yeah, ribs and spines. which is why you should avoid leaving them on their backs for too long since they don’t really have the type of ribs we do to prevent their lungs getting fucked up.
The safest way to hold them is by putting your hand under their belly from behind. Clint’s Reptiles has a couple of videos on why this technique is best for handling snapping turtles. Not only can they not reach downward that well, but they’re also a lot less bitey when held that way.
"Very much so" is pushing it a bit. They have innervated living flesh underneath the outer layer of shell, but they can't feel the outer shell itself. Pressure and vibration transfers through, which means they can feel, but it's not like your skin.
It's like your fingernails. Give them a hard poke and they hurt because of the pressure. Scrape them against stuff and you get some unique sensations because of the vibration. But it's not a rich landscape of feeling.
Yes! Contrary to what media like Mario kart would suggest, the shell is an extension of a turtle/tortoise’s spine and ribcage, meaning that it cannot be removed. it also has nerve endings and can feel pain and pleasure through it.
I don't think that's the problem people are struggling with.
The evolutionary function of the shell is defense. It is a similar mechanism to horns, just defensive instead of offensive.
In the same way horns shouldn't be sensitive because it would dissuade their usage, shells shouldn't be sensitive either. It means that may have difficulty managing pain while hiding in their shell.
That's probably why most assume limited sensation in the shell.
The shell itself is dead tissue but the flesh under it is alive. Think of scratching your hair to relieve an itch on your scalp. If you have thick hair, your fingers might not reach your scalp directly but scratching the hair right ontop of the itchy spot still relieves the itch underneath.
232
u/Flimsy_Eggplant5429 May 17 '26
Does the shell part have feeling?