The theory of the evolution of turtles upside down

2009/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Eboluzioa

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered the oldest turtle remains that have been found so far: Fossil of a turtle of 220 million years. It has not been any discovery, since it has put up some data that until now were considered certain in the theory of turtle evolution. On the one hand, the newly found fossil suggests that turtles evolved in the sea, and not on land, as indicated by the oldest known before discovering it (14 million years later). On the other hand, the Chinese fossil contained only the flat part of the turtles in the belly, the plastron, to which the upper shell was missing. This means that the two parts of the shell evolved separately and that no bone plates joined together by the turtles were formed.