I had a strange dream. I was in this huge room, marble floors, with great marble pillars reaching high over head. There were hangling baskets trailing all sorts of exotic plants, and in the center of the room was a huge pool, heated and burbling, like a hot tub. The room was lit by hundreds of candles, which were on the backs of little turtles. Ornate brass candle holders had been affixed to their shells and they wandered around the room, bearing their lighted burden. Because the room was filled with steam, the flames were muted and flickering, almost fairy like...
As I said...it was a stange dream.
My question is, would it hurt a turtle to have something like that on it's back? They were glued on, and hooks dug into the sides of the shells a little, but not all the way. As they grew, would it just pop off, or cause the shell to distort?
I'm not planning on inflicting an experiment on a turtle, I am just curious.
In the dream, the scene seemed so familiar to me. Have turtles ever been used in such a manner before?
Posts: 1015 | Location: Atlanta, GA USA | Registered: 06-04-02
I've never heard of that sort of thing being done before, but I can tell you about turtle shells...
oh- before i start- what a spiffy dream!
Turtle shells are like your finger. They have keratin, then skin, then bone. So picture having little hooks on the side of each fingernail (tight ones) since you were really little...and your fingers were very small. And you grew. And so did your fingers.
You'd probably be in pain right now because the tightened hooks would eventually puncture through your fingernail, through the skin, and maybe even touch your bones. Providing that the hooks didn't snap off or break during that time...
I'm thinking thats how you were describing the whole turtle shell thing? if you were concerned about having the hot wax dripping on the turtle, it probably would have had the same effect as would you dripping hot wax on your fingernail.
it really only depends on how long the hooks were in the turtle for, and if they were actualy imbedded in the turtle, or if they were just resting on the shell, (like for example, a horses saddle?)
Posts: 437 | Location: Western PA, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
I KNOW this is an old thread, and I KNOW that a turtle is a reptile, not an amphibian, but...
In theory, you could attach candles to the back of a turle with balls of sticky wax, elastic harnesses, etc. If I had a reason to do so, I could certainly design some way to attach a candle safely to the turtle's back.
Hot wax drips would not be a real concern if you used a species with a thick shell, or provided some simple heat barriers as part of the design.
The biggest risk would be candles falling over- but I think that if you used relatively small candles (small, low-heat flames) that this would not be a real concern.
