Extinct giant turtle had horned shell of up to three meters

Paleobiologists from the University of Zurich have discovered exceptional specimens in Venezuela and Colombia of an extinct giant freshwater turtle called Stupendemys. The carapace of this turtle, which is the largest ever ...

Researchers discover real reason why turtles have shells

It is common knowledge that the modern turtle shell is largely used for protection. No other living vertebrate has so drastically altered its body to form such an impenetrable protective structure as the turtle. However, ...

Key link in turtle evolution discovered

An international team of researchers from the United States and Germany have discovered a key missing link in the evolutionary history of turtles. The new extinct species of reptile, Pappochelys, was unearthed in an area ...

Origin of the unique ventilatory apparatus of turtles

Through the careful study of modern and early fossil tortoise, researchers now have a better understanding of how tortoises breathe and the evolutionary processes that helped shape their unique breathing apparatus and tortoise ...

The origin of the turtle shell: Mystery solved

A team of RIKEN researchers has finally solved the riddle of how the turtle shell originated. By observing the development of different animal species and confirming their results with fossil analysis and genomic data, researchers ...

Evolutionary origin of the turtle shell

Through careful study of an ancient ancestor of modern turtles, researchers now have a clearer picture of how the turtles' most unusual shell came to be. The findings, reported on May 30 in Current Biology, help to fill a ...

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