Tag Archives: retractable heads

Discovery Places Turtles Next to Lizards on Family Tree

Where do turtles belong on the evolutionary tree? For decades, the mystery has proven as tough to crack as the creatures’ shells. With their body armor and retractable heads, turtles are such unique creatures that scientists have found it difficult to classify the strange animals in terms of their origins and closest relatives.

“We know turtles evolved from a common ancestor along with birds, lizards and snakes about 300 million years ago, but who modern-day turtles are most closely related to is one of the biggest and most controversial questions in the field of systematics,” said Tyler Lyson, a Yale University graduate student who studies the evolutionary relationships between different animal groups. (more…)

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