If a turtle ever loses it's shell, is it considered homeless? Or naked? And why?

nakey! nah I dunno. both? good question :P

Seeing as the shell is sort of… part of them… I’d say they were an amputee of some kind… an amputated shell doesn’t quite sound right.. but that’s sort of how it would be.

@Tink1113…Great question. It was many, many years ago, but I recall a restaurant down in Mexico where a turtle in such a situation would be considered steaks and/or soup!
by the way, the steak tasted like chicken

If a turtle loses his shell, he’s probably a victim of theft and someone ought to be charged with Grand Theft Carapace. On the other hand, if the turtle voluntarily leaves his shell behind, that would come under the heading of Shameless Reptile Exhibitionism or quite simply, streaking.

It would be considered poached by illegal hunters. Reminds me of this gruesome vid on youtube about animals skinned alive somewhere. shudder

@Bluefreedom,...GA good sir….you never cease to amaze me! See ya….wtf

@atlantis I would not see that video :(

neither would I. Made me cry the whole day.

I would definetly cry if I ever saw something like that :..(

i do hate to be so morbid, i think it would be considered dead! or at least severely injured. i am no turtle expert

@Tink1113 you know what got to me? that there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it. It made me feel small, impotent, like I was a little baby.

if a turtle loses its shell… it dies. plain and simple. kinda like if a bee stings someone or something, it dies as well.

From ye old wikipedia:

“The inner layer of a turtle’s shell is made up of about 60 bones that includes portions of the backbone and the ribs, meaning the turtle cannot crawl out of its shell. In most turtles, the outer layer of the shell is covered by horny scales called scutes that are part of its outer skin, or epidermis.”

The shell is part of a turtle’s backbone, you can’t get rid of it without killing the turtle!

aww poor turtle. hope that never happens. I held a tortoise once, I was so excited- that is until it peed on me!

I once saw a show about those who help the oceans creatures who have been injured or stranded with a segment about a turtle who was missing a significant chunk of his shell (probably from boat propellers) and would have died had they not done something——not an easy problem to solve.

They ended up making a mold of the edges so they could custom cut a piece to fit and then used screws and some type of fiberglass impregnated cloth or tape to secure it on. I don’t remember all the details since it was a while ago, but it was really fascinating and a very creative solution to a unique situation. That was one fortunate turtle.

As others have pointed out obviously, if the turtle has no shell at all he becomes food for others.

It’s not like with hermit crabs or such not who do switch shells as they grow. But they are going into empty shells of other creatures.

A turtle is considered “mutilated” without it’s shell.

So there is no possible way of a turtle who has lost it’s shell and lived?

From Wiki Answers:

If a turtle has no shell is it homeless or naked?
In: Wild Turtles and Tortoises, Word Play Puns and Oxymorons, Most Amusing Questions Ever Asked on WikiAnswers [Edit categories]
[Edit]
Answer

Turtles without their shell are actually dead. Whether or not a corpse can be either homeless or naked is a matter for the philosophers.

Answer

Yes.

Homeless, naked, and dead.

Answer:

Homeless, naked and it died of embarrassment because it was naked and homeless. Naked turtles triple blecch factor> Now naked tortoises are a totally different story.

My Answer

I believe that when turtles have no shell they are both homeless and naked (as well as dead as someone said above)

Blooms Answer:

._. A turtle without a shell is dead, on acount that the turtles spine is atached to the shell. The turtle would be spineless.

Dead and Soon to Be Dinner

The turtle is totally dead and you can start counting the seconds until a bobcat or lynx comes along and eats it!
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/If_a_turtle_has_no_shell_is_it_homeless_or_naked
====================================================

A Turtle cannot exist without its shell

A turtle’s spine/backbone is attached internally to its shell – so to take off the shell is to rip the backbone out of the body and kill the turtle.

A turtle shell consists of two parts – the carapace (the upper convex shell) and the plastron (the lower concave shell) which are joined together by two connecting bone bridges.

The backbone is attached to the the carapace at the top, and to the ribs on the bottom sides.

As a result, most of the length of the turtle’s backbone is fixed in place as one bone! with only the tail and neck retaining flexibility…...
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_a_turtle_look_like_without_its_shell

I may be wrong, but I think the shell holds everything…well…inside.

Button basically summed it up.

@Buttonstc Omg! You got all graphic with me :O
I wish I could give you more lurve for your answer!!

A turtle will die without its shell. It’s shell is its skin, so to speak. You cannot remove a turtle from its shell without cutting it to pieces.

A turtle is not dead immediately after you remove it from its shell, as the legs continue to move and seem to be wanting to walk away. I had this happen when I butchered a turtle for its meat. A very odd experience.

@evelyns_pet_zebra Im dissapointed in you :.(

@Tink1113 why?

@Tink1113 Turtle meat is pretty good actually. Nothing to be disappointed about.

@evelyns_pet_zebra “butchered a turtle for it’s meat…”
But in the end, it is what it is.

@Phobia I dont think I’ve ever tried it, or want to

@Tink1113 I don’t expect anyone who has never hunted animals as food and then eaten them to understand it. I don’t feel guilty for it, it is simply a natural thing.

@evelyns_pet_zebra I apologize for my comment

@evelyns pet zebra It’s not the fact that it was butchered for it’s meat that makes me go “ewww”

It’s the image of the legs trying to walk away——ewww

It reminds me of a PBS program they did on chickens. The phrase “running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off” has a definite basis in reality.

They recounted the story of a farmer in the 40’s (I think) who had a headless chicken that survived the butchering and lived for about a year or more without it’s head. They went on the fair circuit and and there were pictures and everything, so it wasn’t just a made up story. They interviewed the guy also. It was truly weird.

I can respect folks like Ted Nugent and such who do hunt for food and not just a trophy, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, that’s all.

Howeveer, if there weren’t a grocery store to go to, who knows what I would do to survive?

That’s a really good question…One time I was riding my bike all around and
I saw a turtle in the street and I think it was dead and its shell was laying right next to
the turtle. I got really sad and wanted to cry since someone ran over it and I saw the turtle was dead :(

@Buttonstc I googled that story, seems the chicken wasn’t completely headless, and it was more like half its head was gone. According to the story, half of its brain and one ear survived, and a blot clot prevented it from bleeding to death. This I suppose is possible, but seems pretty macabre to me. I would have simply made the proper cut (through the neck) and put the thing out of its misery. Living with half a head (at least for a chicken) seems cruel and inhumane.

But then, that makes me out like a killer in some folks eyes, I suppose. I’ve already been accused of being a psychopath for my carnivorous tendencies and pro-hunting stance on Fluther by other jellies. I don’t care if people think that hunting is cruel, because they have never experienced what happens to animals that aren’t culled to maintain their population. Ever seen an entire herd of deer starve to death because there was no food? That is cruel, and much more barbaric than hunting. No animal should have to face starvation, no matter the reason, whether it is a neglectful pet owner, or some wrong-headed vegetarian activists that Disney-fy wild animals.

@irocktheworld the right thing to do would be to move the dead turtle off the road, and bury it in the ditch. That way it is returned to the circle of life and instead of rotting on the road, its body would go to feed the soil bacteria and microbes that would break it down and render it harmless.

@evelyns_pet_zebra Yeah,I was about to do that but then when I came back the next day,I saw the turtle was gone so somebody must’ve buried it.

A childhood friend had a turtle that “ran” away. She drew pics of it and hung them up in the neighborhood and someone actually returned it! It appeared that it had a bite taken out of its shell. Lately, I have been seeing a poster in my neighborhood for a lost cat. While the poster is very touching and I am very sad for the people who lost their friend, I can’t help but giggle when I see the cat described as a “stripped kitten” [sic]. Now there’s a naked animal!

The human equivalent of a turtle losing its shell would be a person whose rib cage and thoracic spine were removed. Could the person live? Maybe. Would the person want to live? Maybe not. However, a person would have the advantage of having a wheelchair and various disability support systems, while the turtle would not.

Basically, the turtle would be dead.

it would be like an amputee right?

It would looked like a green pancake! I bet it would move a tad bit faster as well.

Before reading all these other great answers I thought it would just be a lizard.