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 ...

Article by Molly Schafer Photos courtesy of Molly Schafer, Mat Smith, Andy Tocydlowski, Maya Walker, Jim White, Kenneth Geisert and University Archives September 10, 2024 The discovery of a ...

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 ...

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 ...

On a warm April afternoon, turtles gather on logs and rocks to absorb sunlight. Basking in the sun plays a critical role in ...

Turtles with shell-cracking jaws were far more likely to survive extinction due to their ability to be sustained on a restricted diet.

Techniques developed to study the distant past—from dating ancient artifacts to reconstructing climate records in ice cores—are now being repurposed to help us better understand the lives of modern ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Imagine that Labradors and golden retrievers died out a million years ago, leaving only fossilized skeletons behind. Without the help of DNA, how could we determine that a fossil ...

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 ...