Donmai

alias tortoise -> turtle

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gfz

If anything it should be an implication. Tortoises are a species of turtle, they're not super hard to tell apart if you look at the legs (although not sure how consistently it's being applied). Tortoises are land-dwelling so they are larger, slower, and stand pretty upright. By comparison, turtles, even those with legs instead of flippers, have more claw-like limbs and basically drag themselves across the ground instead of stepping.
Tortoise
Turtle
The turtle example here is the Snapping Turtle which looks pretty similar to the tortoise, but I can still see the difference.

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zetsubousensei

gfz said:

If anything it should be an implication. Tortoises are a species of turtle, they're not super hard to tell apart if you look at the legs (although not sure how consistently it's being applied). Tortoises are land-dwelling so they are larger, slower, and stand pretty upright. By comparison, turtles, even those with legs instead of flippers, have more claw-like limbs and basically drag themselves across the ground instead of stepping.
Tortoise
Turtle
The turtle example here is the Snapping Turtle which looks pretty similar to the tortoise, but I can still see the difference.

The implication already exists actually, but I still find it to be a meaningless distinction in the world of art where most turtles are drawn fantastically post #6161410 is turtle post #5978036 is tortoise. Both look similar and don't appear to be a more specific species.

I'm not saying in real life they are the same thing, just that I think its meaningless to distinguish here especially when art tends to not be realistic anyway post #6852925 (tortoise) for example. I think the better solution is to use more specific species names like snapping_turtle when appropriate and group the rest under turtle.

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gfz

zetsubousensei said:

I think the better solution is to use more specific species names like snapping_turtle when appropriate and group the rest under turtle.

But then where would that leave all of the tortoise-inspired fantasy creatures?

To me this is kind of like wolf vs dog in the sense that there's a lot of overlap, especially in posts where the animal isn't the focus. I think there's enough of a difference and enough pictures unambiguously representing tortoises to keep it.

That said, I just realized that since I owned turtles for many years, I'm probably much better at recognizing the difference than most users.

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