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 ...

Hans-Dieter Sues - Curator, Paleontology, National Museum of Natural History In a fit of pique, according to one of Aesop's fables, the god Hermes made the animal carry its house forever on its back.

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 ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Shell integration typically involves 50 to 60 individual bones fusing into a permanent structural cage. The carapace creates a ...

A 260 million-year-old fossil has been determined to be the oldest ancestor of turtles found to date, revealing something about the reptile's mysterious past. Michelle Starr is CNET's science editor, ...

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 ...

It's a long-held idea that turtles can tuck their heads into their shells when threatened. But is it true? And is this protective trick why turtles the world over have shells today? The answer is that ...

Move over, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — there is a new, shell-backed badass in town. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, researchers announced the discovery of a ...