What I find amazing is that if this chart was done to scale, the Cambrian and above would be condensed into the top 12% of the chart.
Posted on 08/24/2018 12:24:21 PM PDT by ETL
Named Eorhynchochelys sinensis, the newly-discovered turtle lived approximately 228 million years ago (Triassic period) in what is now southwestern China.
“This creature was over 6 feet long, it had a strange disc-like body and a long tail, and the anterior part of its jaws developed into this strange beak. It probably lived in shallow water and dug in the mud for food,” said Dr. Olivier Rieppel, a paleontologist at Field Museum.
“Eorhynchochelys sinensis isn’t the only kind of early turtle that paleontologists have discovered — there is another early turtle with a partial shell but no beak. Until now, it’s been unclear how they all fit into the reptile family tree.”
“The origin of turtles has been an unsolved problem in paleontology for many decades. Now with Eorhynchochelys sinensis, how turtles evolved has become a lot clearer.”
The fact that Eorhynchochelys sinensis developed a beak before other early turtles but didn’t have a shell is evidence of mosaic evolution — the idea that traits can evolve independently from each other and at a different rate, and that not every ancestral species has the same combination of these traits.
Modern turtles have both shells and beaks, but the path evolution took to get there wasn’t a straight line. Instead, some turtle relatives got partial shells while others got beaks, and eventually, the genetic mutations that create these traits occurred in the same animal.
“This impressively large fossil is a very exciting discovery giving us another piece in the puzzle of turtle evolution. It shows that early turtle evolution was not a straightforward, step-by-step accumulation of unique traits but was a much more complex series of events that we are only just beginning to unravel,” said Dr. Nick Fraser, from the National Museums Scotland.
Fine details in Eorhynchochelys sinensis’ skull solved another turtle evolution mystery.
(Excerpt) Read more at sci-news.com ...
LOL! I love turtles.
Yeah I go to the town of Barton near Waverly around 3 miles north of the PA border. I have found some interesting rocks there.
I just noticed that the rabbit behind the truck, at the top of your ‘ages’ graphic, is actually a jackalope. lol
Yeah, but how hot was it?
What I find amazing is that if this chart was done to scale, the Cambrian and above would be condensed into the top 12% of the chart.
I just clicked on this thread for the McConnell jokes and pics. Thanks!
I never even heard of it before.
Not surprising. Global Warming has made them scarce. Jackalopes just hate #FakeScience!
The Deep State is actually made up of our Turtle Overlords.
Are they related to the even rarer unicorn?
Don’t be ridiculous!
The genus Lepus is miles apart on the evolutionary tree from the genus Equus. Sheesh. ;^)
They will probably have to put another mass extinction at the top.
Is that kid a zombie?
A turtle-loving zombie.
They are the worst kind of zombies!
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