Cartoons often suggest turtles wear shells like removable armor. Those stories show turtles stepping out, swapping shells, or treating them like clothing. Biology disagrees. A turtle shell is not an ...

Narrator: A turtle's shell is as much a part of its body as our rib cage is of ours. In fact, it is their rib cage, and their spine, and their vertebrae, and their sternum. Basically, a turtle's ...

An artistic rendering shows an early proto turtle Eunotosaurus (foreground) burrowing into the banks of a dried-up pond to escape the harsh arid environment present 260 million years ago in South ...

The fossilized remains of a bizarre-looking reptile are giving scientists new insights into how turtles got their distinctive shells. Some 240 million years ago, this early turtle-like creature lived ...

The evolutionary history of turtles has always been a source of controversy in vertebrate palaeontology. When we give anatomy lectures at my university, we often tell students that “turtles might as ...

Travel back in time to 260 million years ago, just before the dawn of the dinosaur era. Journey to what is now South Africa, and make your way to a river bank. Then, wait. If you’re lucky, you might ...