Sublimity in print.
- Features
- May 23, 2024
- Visuals by Samuel Mendez II
“All tortoises are in fact turtles—that is, they belong to the order Testudines or Chelonia, reptiles having bodies encased in a bony shell—but not all turtles are tortoises.” —Kathleen Kuiper (from Britannica)
If you ask me about the difference between a turtle and a tortoise, I couldn’t answer since I’m not a zoologist.
Regardless, happy World Turtle Day!
This day is dedicated to celebrating and preserving both turtles and tortoises, encouraging people to help protect these magnificent reptiles. Although both are not the same thing, an easy way to distinguish a turtle from a tortoise is by identifying their habitat; turtles live mostly in water, while tortoises are land-dwellers. World Turtle Day began in 1990 by the American Tortoise Rescue to acknowledge the need to conserve some species of our shelled friends from extinction that is brought about by environmental hazards and poachers. The organization’s founders, Susan Tellem and Marshall Thompson, are very passionate about our hard-shelled friends.
Come celebrate with me as I recall some of the most iconic turtles and tortoises that you may or may not know yet. These fictional shelled reptiles on our list built a fanbase that appreciates all things that are cute and shelled.
Image taken from: melanieslibrary.com
- The Tortoise from Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare
I am guessing, and there is a high chance that I’m right, that we shared something in common during our childhood: we laughed at the face of the hare when it lost to the turtle. There are many incarnations of this fable, various interpretations, and people going too philosophical about the morals of the animals in the story, proving just how iconic this fable is. However, this fable by Aesop, in its very core, inspired something in us as children. It may have been about believing in reaching our dreams at our own pace or standing up to those who didn’t believe in our abilities, but the tortoise did become a symbol for that.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT)
Who doesn’t know about these four pizza-loving humanoid turtles found in our comics, televisions, and games? In the original Eastman and Laird’s TMNT, the ninja turtles are wearing a red bandana. This is an allusion to them being red-eared sliders, a semi-aquatic species of terrapin. They have a small red stripe by their ear, are native to North America, and are the most popular pet turtle in the US.
Image taken from: editorial.rottentomatoes.com
Later versions of TMNT are more ambiguous about the precise species of the four turtles, but one of the recent incarnations, specifically Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, features Leonardo as a red-eared slider with visible red markings under his blue bandana.
Image taken from: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net
- Squirtle
Squirtle is one of the first-generation starter Pokémon of the Kanto region, overshadowed by Charmander because it evolves into Charizard. This blue bipedal reptile appears in both games and anime under the Pokémon franchise. In the 1997 anime, episode 12 introduced us to the iconic Squirtle Squad, a group of Squirtle (Also their plural term) who were terrorizing a town but later recognized as heroes after they put out a forest fire and officially became a squadron of Pokémon firefighters. The turtle squad would cameo 22 years later in the 2019 movie Detective Pikachu, which showed a group of Squirtle in a news segment using their water-type moves to put out a fire. The water Pokemon’s popularity extends well beyond the anime and into merchandise as well. Did you know that the most valuable Squirtle trading card was sold for $73,200? It was the 1999 Pokemon Japanese Promo 64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest Snap Squirtle #7.
But what would be a real life inspiration to our aquatic water-gunner? This has been a fun topic of speculation amongst fans. According to one Redditor, the species that inspired Squirtle is the Japanese pond turtle, a major clue given by Squirtle’s Japanese name, Zenigame, which translates to money turtle. This is a reference to Japanese pond turtles, which have brown shells that resemble Edo-era coinage (1603–1868).
Image taken from: sfchronicle.com
There are still a lot of turtles I have in mind, like Master Oogway and Bowser, but they deserve to be more than part of a list because of their status as icons in pop-culture. I hope this list helped invigorate the drive for helping in the conservation of turtles. These iconic characters gave their turtles the popularity they deserve, and as much as we hate to hear it, their habitats are shrinking, and some of the species are facing the threat of extinction. There is still a chance, and if we failed to grasp it, we might lose our cute shelled friends forever.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lamb-mule is a student in the program Literary and Cultural Studies with Creative Writing. He is fond of reading books, mostly fictitious works.