Herps in Society and Culture: Crush and a Cartoon Gator

The image you see above is a fictional character named Crush who is from the movie Finding Nemo which then lead to the most recent movie Finding Dory. Crush is a pop culture representation of a sea turtle (Family Cheloniidae) more specifically he represents a green sea turtle. Sea turtles or Cheloniids often have a heart-shaped or ovular carapace (top shell). This representation of a sea turtle shows an ovular shaped carapace with the same pattern of scutes (big scales on the shell) as real sea turtles. Crush's shell was probably used for protection its a hard covering protecting his spinal cord and vitals, as in real sea turtles. One huge indicator that Crush is a sea turtle is the flipper-like/paddle-like front limbs that are also much larger than those in the back. He uses those limbs to swim and move through the water. His shell is flatter which makes it better to maneuver in water faster and efficiently because does he does lack the ability to retract his head into his shell. This was one feature that sea turtles had lost. 

This next artwork seems to be a cartoon elaboration of a crocodile. Of course, there are the scales and the obvious appearance of the reptile, but the identification of this reptile comes from looking at its snout. The snout is more pointed and narrow with both top and bottom jaw's teeth showing. which helps differentiate this from an alligator because they have more rounded and wider and broad snouts, and they don't show the bottom jaw's teeth at all. The elaborate illustration and cartoon depiction indicates that it is a predator/ hunter based on its attire in the artwork. This species does tend to have long tails the size of there bodies which can also be seen in this picture. The tail is probably used for very quick travel, hunting, or battling in water. An assumption can be made that the pointed digits on the front and back limbs are claws which would be used from traveling on land. One false aspect of this illustration of this reptile is that it looks like it has internal heat as shown in the fiery right hand, but this species actually bask in the sun to get hot and swims to get cold because they're cold-blooded.