Like its aquatic cousins, the turtle and the terrapin, the tortoise is shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise has both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton. Tortoises can vary in size from a few centimetres to two meters. Most land tortoises are herbivorous in the wild.
The giant tortoises of the Galápagos Islands helped Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution, since the isolated populations on the different islands, although descended from a common ancestor, had diverged to different forms.
PJOE: Tortoise - Article about the group, their influences, and their history.
RollingStone.com: Tortoise - Biography, photograph, discography, links, and video clips.
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The History of Rock Music: Tortoise - Biography, discography, reviews, and links. [English/Italian]
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