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...