Editing Tortoise (section)

===Brain===
The brain of a tortoise is extremely small. Red-footed tortoises, from Central and South America, do not have an area in the brain called the [[hippocampus]], which relates to emotion, learning, memory and spatial navigation. Studies have shown that red-footed tortoises may rely on an area of the brain called the medial cortex for emotional actions, an area that humans use for actions such as decision making.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.livescience.com/47155-tortoise-touchscreen-learning.html|title=Tortoises Show Off Smarts by Mastering Touch-Screen Tech|newspaper=Live Science|access-date=2016-12-01}}</ref>

In the 17th century, [[Francesco Redi]] performed an experiment that involved removing the brain of a land tortoise, which then proceeded to live six months. Freshwater tortoises, when subjected to the same experiment, continued similarly, but did not live so long. Redi also cut the head off a tortoise entirely, and it lived for 23 days.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Cuvier|first1=Georges|last2=Smith|first2=Charles Hamilton|last3=Pidgeon|first3=Edward|title=The animal kingdom arranged in conformity with its organization|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_n1IAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA54|year=1831|publisher=Printed for G. B. Whittaker|pages=54–|volume=9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, Etc|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HYdHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA277|year=1831|publisher=H. Colburn|pages=277–}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Broderip|first=William John|title=Leaves from the Note Book of a Naturalist|url=https://archive.org/details/leavesfromnotebo00brodrich|year=1852|publisher=E. Littell & Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/leavesfromnotebo00brodrich/page/83 83] (left column)|quote=In the beginning of November he opened the skull of a land-tortoise, removed every particle of brain, and cleaned the cavity out... instead of dying or remaining motionless, it groped its way about....}}</ref>