Jody Alan Jones, age 11, of Gastonia, No. Carolina, for his question:

Why don't reptiles have backbones?

A wriggly snake seems to have no backbone at all. A turtle seems to have a shell instead of a backbone. Both snakes and turtles are reptiles. And, believe it or not, all reptiles have backbones. They do indeed, even the snakes and the turtles. A backbone, as you know, is made of a lot of small bones. The small bones are linked together to form a long chain.

Backbones are bendable because there are gristly joints between the small bones. The snake's backbone is more bendable than most because he has more of these small bones. A turtle cannot bend his backbone at all because it is fixed firmly onto the underside of his shell. Lizards, crocodiles and all the other members of the reptile clan have bendable backbones made from small bones. All the birds, the fishes and the furry mammals also have backbones. So do the frogs, the toads and the salamanders.