Somali pirates pictured from a US Navy ship
Posted on 11/18/2008 2:53:35 PM PST by nickcarraway
Turtles first took to the water 164 million years ago when they started swimming in lakes and lagoons on the Isle of Skye, fossil finds have indicated.
Excavations on the island have yielded the remains of at least six primitive turtles that learnt to swim during the age of the dinosaurs.
For more than 50 million years primitive turtles had been land animals but 164 million years ago they evolved to become aquatic. The discovery of Eileanchelys waldmani, a previously unknown species of primitive turtle, represents a missing link in the evolution of turtles that palaeontologists have long sought.
Its limbs were similar to those of modern freshwater turtles rather than the flippers of seagoing species, but are likely to have had webbing between the claws.
Related Links Two-headed beast from 100m BC Scientists concluded that the newly discovered species was aquatic because the fossils were found in rock that once formed the bottom of a lake or lagoon, and because unlike the remains of contemporary land animals, which were fragmented having been washed into a pool, the turtles were relatively complete and articulated.
“ Eileanchelys waldmanican be plausibly interpreted as the earliest known aquatic turtle,” researchers concluded in their report published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.
Although Skye is swept by often ferocious Atlantic storms today, the conditions were markedly different during the Middle Jurassic, when the turtle evolved. Then, the island was part of a coastal region of a much bigger land mass, dotted with low salinity lagoons and freshwater lakes and ponds.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Still waiting on his DSL.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/arcticdino/
The temperature according to this just released data was about 30 degrees warmer than today. Back when the Boreal Forest grew up to the shores of the Arctic Ocean and the North American continent was much closer to the north pole.
Hey Nick what is with you and fish this week?
There has be a lot of sea life news this week.
ROFLMAO!!!
Somali pirates pictured from a US Navy ship
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Thanks nickcarraway. |
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