Amazing story conitnued ...

Of course, only avid readers of The Enquirer would believe that my Russian tortoise shucked or unzipped his shell, scampered around the house without it like a lizard-man escaped from P.T. Barnum's circus, then settled himself back into his shell.


Other than the famous batboy, one of my favorite Enquirer headline is: "Ancient Skull Talks and Sings to Scientists."

"Man's Tortoise Leads Double, Shell-free, Life," would rank right up there, I think.

I posted the previous tortoise fiction to raise the point that it is very difficult for us to get away from the very inaccurate and cartoonie idea that a tortoise lives inside his or her shell, like, say, a dog lives in a doghouse.

To my knowledge, only a hermit crab lives outside of its shell of choice, and that ever so briefly until it finds a suitable (tight fitting) abandoned seashell in which to seal itself from predators and to retain moisture. One of the more famous hermit crabs was "Crusty," in the 1964 Don Knotts film, "The Incredible Mr. Limpet." (Even though listed as a family comedy, parts of it scared the 7-year-old me at the drive-in.)

Henry Limpet wants to be a fish ... "I wish, I wish I were a fish," and it happens. Live-action Don Knotts becomes a cartoon fish and even garners a girlfriend, "Ladyfish."

Crusty is a friend and helper.

Great line from the movie -- Limpet: "Do you suppose that we could just be more or less friends?" Ladyfish: "Friends? But wouldn't that be more or less nothing, Limpet?"

Anyway, tortoises (and snails) do not inhabit or borrow or wear their shells, any more than you could say that a person lives inside their rib cage, or inside their skin.

The bone structure of the tortoise is unique and amazing, as the backbone and ribs of the animal are grown into or fused with the shell. The tortoise will have a line of "scutes," (from the Latin "scutum" or shield) which are the visible segments or plates of the shell, along the backbone. These are called, oddly enough, vertebrals. Along either side of the vertebrals is a row of "pleurals." The outermost scutes that skirt the tortoise are called marginals.

That's it. Just the three rows. Not endless numberless scute upon scute. Even the giant tortoises have the three rows, they are just bigger.

If a tortoise is out of its shell, it is not in the shower. It is dead.