They could carry the weight of a man on their back and keep right on going. The tortoise travels about 4 miles a day. On the other hand, sea turtles have devel-oped flipperlike legs and sleek shells. They swim at about 20 miles an hour. The distance a sea turtle might travel in one hour would take a week for a tortoise to cover.
Turtles are ancient life forms.
The earliest fossils recognized as turtles date from the Triassic period, about 200 million years ago. Turtles were in existence prior to the emergence of the great dinosaur groups and survived the demise of the dinosaurs, continuing to adapt and flourish. Turtles occupy almost every imaginable habitat-woods, ponds, rivers, lakes, marshlands, prairies, deserts and the open ocean, and they eat food as varied as insects, tender seagrasses, carrion, fruit and fish. Turtles have great similarity yet great variation as well. The Galapagos tortoise evolved on islands with no predators and little competition.