Turtle. Hydra.

A'ight, I'm down.

This is very useful in the Chulane Brawl deck.

I was excited to see turtle hydra but I was expecting something about higher toughness or hexproof. Is there some fairy tale about a turtle that breaks things?

It's a brawl deck card, so I think it's more a tool for that than anything else.

afaik there's no explicit link between artifact destruction and turtles, aside from that artifact destruction is often stapled onto big green beasties with the flavour "big animals break things"

Not strictly a fairy tale, but it might be a oblique reference to the Tarasque of French folklore, a dragonlike beast that among others is said to have a turtle shell.

And was conquered by Saint Martha who used prayer to tame the beast. Though when she took it to the town it was terrorizing to show her victory, the people there slew it on sight. Upon learning of its redemption, they are said to have changed the village’s name to Tarascon. Sorry I jusr really like the story of the tarasque.

maybe martha was trying to destroy the town and when they killed the tarasque really easily before it could to anything she saved face by claiming she tamed it

I have no faith in the idea this is a tarasque. It seems way too off the wall. I think they just really wanted a Turtle Hydra like they really wanted the Chameleon Hydra (Whiptongue Hydra?)

I like these weirdo animal hydras, but yeah, a turtle really needs to do something more turtley to get my approval.

The flavor text makes me cringe. "jagged caltrops"?

My guess is that they made a U/G large monster for the main set (Thunderous Snapper) and made it a turtle hydra and then later made this card for the brawl product after they had already decided that hydras on this plane are turtles. Unless they figure out what all of the iconics look like before they get that far. Either way, now that I know there are more than one turtle hydras I don't mind that this doesn't use its turtle aspect in the mechanics.

It's a little weird to me that they would decide that all hydras on the plane had to be turtles. Are they rationing hydra crossbreed flavour for future sets?
Still, there's a good chance you're right.
This card would have looked better if we'd seen it after the other turtle hydra.

I think it would be more just establishing what the species looks like on this plane, same as establishing what goblins or merfolk look like.