The ribs of a 240 million-year-old fossil hold clues to how the first turtle shell evolved. And its skull shape seems closer to that of lizards and snakes than to an ancestor of dinosaurs and birds.

The first turtle with a fully developed shell — a creature that would be clearly recognizable to almost everyone as a turtle — shows up in the fossil record about 214 million years ago. But the fossil ...

There are two camps in the debate. As turtle embryos develop, their shells grow directly from the animals' ribs, and adult turtles' ribs are fused to the shell carapace. Some scientists conclude ...

Ancient fossil turtle had no shell 22 August 2018 National Museums Scotland The nearly complete skeleton reveals a complex early history of turtles ...

The gradual origin of the turtle shell with two hypothetical ancestors, from an animal with isolated lumps of armour, to one with a complete shell A newly identified fossil could explain one of ...