making it a vital and sensitive part of the tortoise’s body. 3. Shell Patterns Are Unique Like Fingerprints Each tortoise shell has a unique pattern of scutes, similar to human fingerprints.

medium-sized turtle with a shell up to seven inches long. The upper shell is olive to dark brown; the lower shell is hinged, front and back, and varies from yellow to cream colored. Sonoyta mud ...

Photo courtesy of Anna Yu ] Those suspicions were confirmed when a longtime Eckerd College biology professor examined the tortoise shells. In 1994, Peter Meylan and his students started tracking ...