by sogekik » Tue Jun 04, 2019 3:47 am
7201. as always you miss the point(s). it is worth noting that my original point about splitting the difference was intended as a joke rather than a statement taking into account scientific or other reasoning. though morphology and aesthetic similarity are different things, granted they often equate to the same thing but they have they're own nuances and logic to them.
7202. also, the usage of morphology, as opposed to a 'looks-like' comparison, is notable as morphology can, for example, be used to refer to aesthetic differences within the same abstraction (species, family, word, thing, etc.). this means that the relationship structure is a little more complex than 'is similar to' (and once again) depending on the abstraction. Hope (an exceptionally rare pinkbelly sideneck turtle) has a different morphology to a standard member of her species but still belongs, a terrapin and a tortoise have similar morphologies but are different species.
7203. 6 and 9 are essentially the same things, they are symbols used to represent a numerical value, this could even be the same value if your working in base 2 then 10 is not ten but rather 2, if your working in base 6 then 10 is six and so on, ultimately the value comes down to the philosophy of the system your using, and that can get strange, but that's a conversation for a different argument.
7204. no, a terrapin is not a turtle, they are actually about as far removed from a turtle as a tortoise is at least in terms of taxonomy, it is technically a turtle but not literally a turtle.
7205. the key difference actually comes from their primary habitat, not there ability to survive in water, none of them can survive in water indefinitely, they all possess lungs, not gills and therefore require air to breathe. each is shaped to their habitat, though it is worth noting that as each given group of species, turtle, terrapin and tortoise all have similar lung structures, it is likely while not suited to swimming at all, surprisingly (considering how frequently this is asked online) I can't find a specific or ballpark figure, probably due mostly to variation in size. though it is worth noting that terrapins can hold they're breath for about half an hour, and sea turtles can hold they're breath for 4-7 hours depending on species, and the fact that there are numerous cases listed online where a turtle has died after a few hours in a pond, (presumably a smaller ones, given that the spur-thighed tortoise grows up to about 8inches and is the most common species for pets) that a terrapin is likely to have a lung capacity closer to a tortoise, not a turtle.
7206. if we assume that therefore respiration, for the most part, is the same then, therefore, the major difference becomes limbs. a terrapin has limbs similar to a tortoise, with some resemblance to a turtle and is therefore about halfway between the two, or at least the closest thing to it, it seems a fair compromise, especially as tortoises were first brought up and as previously mentioned they also have similar capacities for aquatic survival ignoring aquatic mobility, which as one is adapted to rivers and the other land would make sense.