9:33
Hey, what's going on everyone? Today we're going to be talking about hinges. That's right. The turtles didn't just develop a shell 250 million years ago. Many of them kept on improving on a really awesome design. Today, we're going to see some of the turtles that I have that actually have a hinge. When we think about turtles with a hinge, probably the one that we think about the most is the box turtle. Now, these are the Mexican box turtles, but they're much like the rest of
the North American box turtles in that they have a movable hinge on their plastin. 250 million years, that's how long turtles and tortoises have had their shell. They've basically looked the same for that long. Except back then some turtles had teeth. One thing they all had already developed was a shell. Now shell is composed of the carropase and the plron which is on the bottom. Most turtles and tortoises have a fixed carropase and a fixed plon. But today we're going to find out there are a lot of turtles that don't. And one of them, the most famous one is of course
the box turtle. So this one's very spunky. Look at this gorgeous one right here. Is that beautiful? That is a gorgeous animal. Now, the thing about the box turtle is, oh, look at that. It can close up tightly like a box. A lot of people would sometimes say boxer turtle. It's not. It's a box turtle. And this is an incredibly cool design that nature came up with this movable hinge. As the turtle pulls itself in, it closes a trap door. The muscles pull everything in, and it really can seal itself up nice and tight. And once this animal gets to this size,
there's not many raccoons that can pry it open or any land-based predators. Now, of course, crocodiles and alligators can crush their shell, but no birds, no raccoons, no possum, nothing like that is going to be able to eat these little dudes once they develop a strong hard shell. And that hinge is the reason they call them the box turtle. They can really, really tighten up. So, when we talk about box turtles, most of us in the North America, uh, in North America know about the eastern box turtle. We've got the three-toed box turtle, the Gulf Coast box turtle,
the western box turtle, and the desert box turtle. There's also the Cohilin box turtle, the Yucatan box turtle, and the Mexican box turtle. Very, very cool species of animals, all found in North America with a very well-defined plron. But they're not the only box turtles on Earth. to meet the others. Luckily, we only have to go a few steps away, but they're from Asia. But does that make sense? Let's try that again. Normally, we'd have to fly to Asia, but luckily for us, I have a few right here, just a few steps away. See you.
What do we got over here? It's one of our Chinese box turtles, Favo Margina. This is a really cool species. This is a female. And in Asia, like I was saying earlier, there are many box turtles. The Asian box turtles, the quora, there are a lot of different species. You've got the golden coin turtle. You got the flavo margin, which I'm holding right here, coral galbilifons, you've got McCord's box turtle. You've got so many different species of box turtle found in Asia. One thing that makes them box turtles though is that movable hinge.
Let's see. This turtle probably is so friendly. It won't really even go in, I don't think. There we go. They can close up as well. You see that? Nice closing up. They can also close their rear. The plron moves and the front of the car plron moves. These guys can really do a great job at protecting themselves. They're a medium-sized turtle. They like to wander around on land near water. They can swim if they had to. They eat invertebrates. They eat some fruit. They wander all over the place doing turtly kind of things. They're totally cool to be honest with you. These
guys are great because they're colorful. They're also highly endangered. All the box turtles in Asia are highly coveted for pets as they're considered good luck. They're also uniquely colored and unfortunately that means that they are sought after in the illicit trade for pets, which is kind of a bummer. It's the one thing their shell cannot protect them from. Humans, we can just pick them up, bring them home, stick them in a tank, and that's that. They're living in there the rest of their lives instead of the beautiful forests of Taiwan and southern China
where the kora flavor margina is from or the yellow marginated box turtle. These guys truly are a real gem and uh actually I have quite a few of them here at the camp. They're very friendly. They're very fun. I enjoy keeping them around. They have great personalities. They wander all over. Very active, very alert. But again, what we're talking about is the fact that nature, in addition to creating this awesome shell, also advanced it through convergent evolution, meaning two separate animals, two separate species, came up with the same solution for a
problem. They wanted to make this shell even more specialized and more protective. So, they came up with that really cool hinge on the plron. That's really, really awesome. Now, that's not the only Asian box turtle I have. We also have the Asian box turtle, Corora ambionis. These guys are from Indonesia. They also close up. You can see this one's very, very shy as opposed to that flavor margina. So, these guys are from little uh river streams, you know, small streams, rice patties. They're tropical species. They like shallow water. And years ago, I would see these sold as
box turtles in pet stores up in Long Island. And unfortunately, people were keeping them like North American box turtles. And that is not the way you want to keep these guys. Think of these just like you would a slider or any other pond turtle. They love water. They can wander around on land, but they love to swim and they love to soak. So, keeping them in water is key. A lot of these would wind up getting dehydrated. They fed them the wrong foods and that's a problem. Cora ambianensis is an omnivore, but they have a prediliction towards eating invertebrates and pelleted
foods and things of that nature. Meanwhile, this guy is a little bit more specialized, just kind of enjoying this new habitat that we're watching these guys wander around in. It's fun to just get the animals out, show them off. But again, look at that plron. Really nice design. Well-developed plon in this species. And that is important for protection. hard shell. Can't get in there. Can't crack it open. And you're not moving that plaster on at all. Where is this guy going? I love this little gal. She's very inquisitive. Let's hope she doesn't get
sucked down that stream. That's a pretty good waterfall. Let's see what she can do here. I love watching these guys negotiate new terrain. They're so curious and they're so actually more athletic and dextrous than you would think. Very, very agile when they need to be. Oh, so cool to see an Asian box turtle next to our bamboo. I think that's sweet. What a beautiful day it is. I love the way the sun is just kind of reflecting off that reflecting off those yellow stripes behind its eye.
Beautiful out. You can see why they're highly coveted in the pet trade. These guys are an endangered species, so we want to be careful with them. We're going to put them away right now, get them back in their enclosure, but we're going to meet another turtle who happens to have a hinge. Not quite as well defined as our box turtle. All right, our next turtle with a hinge is a little North American species. This is a Tabasco mud. They're from Mexico. But we have a bunch of mud turtles in the United States. And if they are in the genus Kino Sternum,
that means they have a movable hinge. So check this out. Not quite as developed as a box turtle, but it does move. These guys will bite. They bite real hard. So you want to be careful. But they can move that little plron. And they can kind of close it up a bit. They want it. They can also move the back of their plron. They have two hinges. Isn't that incredible? Kino meaning movement and sternum. Sternum meaning of course your sternum. So they named this turtle the kina sternum audum the tabasco mud turtle. But there's also three stripe mud turtles, Florida mud turtles.
There's plenty of mud turtles that can move their plrons. Again, these guys can't really seal up as well as other box type turtles or turtles with movable plrons. Um they're really still kind of aggressive. They'll bite. They'll musk. They also call these musk turtles for that reason. They'll secrete a musk that smells really, really bad. Smells like a skunk. And that is so they perhaps fool their enemies and predators into thinking they're a rotting piece of meat and we are not tasty. We are stinky. So, they are small turtles. They have a bit more of a delicate shell,
but nature decided to give them a hinge here and a hinge here. And that way they can kind of cover their rear if they if you know what I'm saying. They can pull their rear into their shell and hide and give themselves a chance at survival. The shell is still very protective, albeit this is a very tiny species. There are a few other turtles with movable shells. The European pond turtle has a hinge plastron and the Palucius uh mud turtles in the genus Pucius uh they are from Africa and they have movable uh plastrons as well. They can seal up.
Um I have one of those in with Slinky. Maybe we'll see one later. I don't know. But anyhow, they are really cool and they can kind of seal up. So Ken Sternum audum the Tabasco mud. One of another group of turtles that also has a hinge evolution getting things done. We've been in North America, then to Asia, then back to North America with the Tabasco muds, and now we're in Madagascar, and we're talking about a very small dimminionative sized tortoise, the spider tortoise. This is Cashew. And cashew is one of only two species of tortoises
or two genus of tortoises that actually have a hinge. And if you look at cashew in the front, cashews got a hinge right here. This is really odd because tortoises normally don't have movable hinges, but this one does. Spider tortoises are tiny. This is a full-size tortoise. It does have a very strong shell even though it is a small size. Now, why is it why did it develop a hinge? Well, probably for the same reasons that other tortoises and turtles did. That's for protection. The shell is a really good protector for the soft, gushy little body of this reptile on the inside.
The shell's part of their skeleton. Their vertebrae go along the back and then their ribs come out the side and they fuse together to create the carropase and their sternums have fused to create the plron. But that hinge is what we're talking about today. It's really, really incredible. And the little spider tortoise. So many times people say these are pretty rocks, but mine love to move around. They're intense. They're fun. We've got cashew, walnut, and peanut. Really, really great little tortoises. They're um forest species. They kind of live in
dry forests with seasonal rains. They're tiny. That little that beautiful radiating pattern is what helps them blend in to their environment. And you can see this one's trying to hide into the ba bamboo leaves. So really, really pretty little species. Enjoy keeping them here at the camp. We recently got them last summer. Uh they were kind of surrendered to us or retired, if you will, to us from a zoo here in Florida. And I've been having a great time. We keep them in my office. They keep me company when I'm doing all my kind of boring work, you know, like all
the stuff with taxes and all the stuff I don't like to do. But anyway, these guys are awesome. And uh if I'm not careful, this one's gonna hustle away. Look at how fast they move. So little but fast. Very pretty tortoise. Again, another example of a tortoise now with a hinge. So plenty of Chelonians have developed hinges all over the world that aren't necessarily related to each other uh more than the fact that they're just tortoises and turtles. So, that's pretty interesting how they developed that hinge. And you know what? We got one more turtle
or rather tortoise that you need to meet. It's a new arrival here to the camp. It's a Holmes hingeback tortoise. So, instead of Look at this guy got a goofy little face. We like him though. Don't have a name for him yet. Instead of the plron moving, okay, this is a fixed plron. Instead of that, it's the back. It's a hinge on the back of the carropase. The hingeback tortoises. These guys are from Africa. Some of them are from the forest. Some of from savylvanas. But they all have a hinge. This is called kixus. Again, kixus Latin. It means movable. Kinetics,
energy, movement. That's where they get that root word from the root of the word kinix. Kixus. Uh, same thing with kino stern. We saw that earlier. But this is really cool because this is the only turtle and tortoise that I know of that has a hinge on its carropase. How unique and interesting is that? This guy will eat invertebrates. They're heavily uh they're they have a more of a prediliction towards eating fruits and plants, but as we found with lots of vegetarian animals, they will eat animal protein if it is easy to catch. It's interesting. These guys are from Africa. These guys are from uh Madagascar, which isn't
uh too far off the coast of Africa. So, very interesting because Madagascar and Africa were once one continent. They were attached. And it's just really cool to see how this tortoise species developed a hinge on its plon whereas this one developed a hinge on its carropase. So strange. So bizarre. I love reptiles for that reason. There's a lot of interesting evolutionary things that reptiles have done to help them survive throughout the eons and eons that they've been on Earth. Really, really cool designs that nature develops for these animals. And again,
look at this little guy, the spider tortoise, braving that slope, wandering around. Careful, little one. Oh, that's so awesome to see it moving around like this. I would love to set these guys up outdoors. And now this little dude, he came to me just a couple of weeks ago. And uh we're going to raise him up and see how well he does and potentially get another of his own kind because I love to have more than just one of the of a single species, right? It's kind of like the Noah's arc of turtles and tortoises here. I would love to have two or more of every species that
I can help protect. Very, very cool stuff. So, there you have it, friends. Really unique animals to begin with if you're a turtle or a tortoise, but they even get more specialized when you consider the fact that these guys have also evolved hinges on their carropase, on their plrons, and that is just one more reason turtles and tortoises are true survivors in armor. Awesome stuff. Hey, thanks for watching me today. Don't forget to go to campkennon.com. Well, no, campkennon. Wait a minute. patreon.com/campkennon.
I get a little confused sometimes. I better get moving because that little spider tortoise is almost out of here. Don't forget to like and subscribe and I'll see you guys again soon.
