Did you know that:

• 

  Turtles do not have any outer ear. Photo by P.N. Chen.

  Turtles don’t have any “outer ear” — the part that sticks out from your head, but they have all the “inner ear” mechanisms that other animals do. They also have the auditory nerve and brain center required for hearing. The outer ear gathers sound vibrations to make them louder. So turtles do not hear airborne sounds as loudly as you do, but they can sense and interpret vibrations in the environment. Hearing probably isn’t very important to a turtle though, because their senses of vision and smell are excellent. The brain center for hearing is quite small by comparison.

• Did you know that turtle is “zelva” in Czech and “czerepakha” in Russian?

• Did you know that sea turtles becomes sexually mature at 25-35 years old? When mature, turtles can be distinguished as being either a male or female by the size of its tail. A mature male will have a much longer and thicker tail than a mature female.

This post is part of Turtle Blogathon 2009, where we stayed up for 24-straight-hours to blog about turtles. Posts written during the Turtle Blogathon are filed in the Turtle Blogathon 2009 category.

• Sexual differentiation and sex manipulation
• Reproductive aspects
• Do turtles live in groups? How do they communicate among themselves?
• What is the lifespan of a turtle?
• How long have turtles been on earth? How did they look like in prehistoric time?