*Maureen Moses, American Geosciences Institute*
Turtles are the last major living vertebrate group to be placed firmly on the tree of life, and the arguments are getting messy. Three fields in particular — paleontology, developmental biology and microbiology/genomics — disagree about how, and from what, turtles may have evolved. In the latest EARTH Magazine feature story, contributing writer Naomi Lubick investigates how these creatures confound scientists on many levels — from their morphology in the paleontological record and in modern day turtles, to the analysis of their genome. Where do they belong in the evolutionary record?
Recent publications and meetings convened on turtle evolution have resulted in, for now, scientists agreeing to disagree. Meet turtles’ potential ancestors, and explore the modern research and controversy in the April issue of EARTH Magazine.
Subscribe to EARTH Magazine to unlock all of the exciting stories, photos and interviews, including stories about the geological gems in Gubbio, Italy, how acid rain and ozone depletion may have been the double-whammy that ended the Permian, and how sediments are stumping scientists in Norwegian fjords in the newly redesigned www.earthmagazine.org.
--- Reported by redOrbit 6 hours ago.
Turtles are the last major living vertebrate group to be placed firmly on the tree of life, and the arguments are getting messy. Three fields in particular — paleontology, developmental biology and microbiology/genomics — disagree about how, and from what, turtles may have evolved. In the latest EARTH Magazine feature story, contributing writer Naomi Lubick investigates how these creatures confound scientists on many levels — from their morphology in the paleontological record and in modern day turtles, to the analysis of their genome. Where do they belong in the evolutionary record?
Recent publications and meetings convened on turtle evolution have resulted in, for now, scientists agreeing to disagree. Meet turtles’ potential ancestors, and explore the modern research and controversy in the April issue of EARTH Magazine.
Subscribe to EARTH Magazine to unlock all of the exciting stories, photos and interviews, including stories about the geological gems in Gubbio, Italy, how acid rain and ozone depletion may have been the double-whammy that ended the Permian, and how sediments are stumping scientists in Norwegian fjords in the newly redesigned www.earthmagazine.org.
--- Reported by redOrbit 6 hours ago.