The discovery, in China, of the oldest known turtle fossil has turned palaeontologists' understanding of the species' origin and ecology on its head. The fossil of Odontochelys semitestacea was found ...

Every young boy has spent at least one afternoon digging a hole in the ground looking for some kind of treasure. An eight-year-old from South Africa was doing just that when he unearthed a turtle ...

From which ancestors have turtles evolved? How did they get their shell? New data provides evidence that turtles are not primitive reptiles but belong to a sister group of birds and crocodiles. The ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Cartoons often suggest turtles wear shells like removable armor. Those stories show turtles stepping out, swapping shells, or ...

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 ...

How smushed shells could help to resolve paleontological mysteries. By Asher Elbein You never know where a bit of unusual scientific research is going to lead. Consider a 2012 study about turtle ...

A new study shows how scientists can use animals' physical features -- also known as morphology -- to make connections between a modern species and its fossilized relatives, even if they look ...

Shell integration typically involves 50 to 60 individual bones fusing into a permanent structural cage. The carapace creates a mechanical constraint that prevents the chest from expanding during ...