Turtles generally refer to both tortoises (land dwelling turtles) and
terrapins (water dwelling turles).

jan may be right in a general sense that all shelled reptiles need to get
out of the water from time to time, mostly to sun and get vitamin D, but
with respect her answer does not answer the question to OP had. Of course,
neither does my answer answer it.
"~ jan" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:08:27 CST, "Dan Robinson"
wrote:

Last year someone offered me a turtle pair (RES) and I put them in my
waterlily pond. They disappeared and we never saw them again. I figured
they crawled over the edge of the raised pond and went looking for a new
home during the major storm that occurred a couple of days after their
arrival. This spring while trimming one of my flower beds I noticed a
tiny
baby turtle. He was smaller than a 50 cent coin. He was looking dried
out
so we decided to put him in a spare aquarium we had. Over the last couple
of weeks he has grown quickly and we are wondering what to do next. If I
put him in the lily pond I suspect he will climb out and have a hard time
surviving our hot Houston summer. We have a large koi pond and it would
be
nearly impossible to climb out of it. Would this put our koi at risk?
Dan

Turtles have to get out of the water and dry out now and then.... and
that's about the extent of my turtle knowledge. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us