Turtles Galore

A walk along a quiet lake shore turned up turtles galore:

There are over 30 turtles in this photo, big and small, basking in the spring sunshine!

Here are some close-ups:

This is either a turtle convention - possibly met to plot the destruction of human-kind, or there is a whole lot of poikilothermism going on.  What's that, you say?  Yes, poikilothermism, which means the state of being cold-blooded.  Now, did they have murderous intent, or were they simply sunbathing in order to warm themselves up a little?  We may never know.

What we do know, however, is that "poikilos" comes from the Greek and meshes with "thermal" to indicate these kinds of creatures (fish and reptiles) that cannon maintain their own body temperature the way mammals can.