Organisms display a considerable variety of body sizes and shapes, and macroevolutionary
investigations help to understand the evolutionary dynamics behind such variations. Turtles …

Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is widespread in nature and may result from selection
operating differentially on males and females. Rensch's rule, the increase of SSD with body …

A variety of means, including forelimb proportions and shell bone histology have been used
to infer the paleoecology of extinct turtles. However, the height-to-width ratio of the shell (as …

Competing hypotheses of early turtle evolution contrast sharply in implying very different
ecological settings—aquatic versus terrestrial—for the origin of turtles. We investigate the …

Cope's rule of phyletic size increase is questioned as a general pattern of body size
evolution. Most studies of Cope's rule have examined trends in the paleontological record …

Aims Geographical gradients in body size have been extensively studied in endotherms,
and general rules exist to describe body size variation in these animals. However, the …

Turtles provide a classic example of many essential riddles of evolutionary biology: who are
their ancestors, and how did their remarkable anatomy evolve from a more typical form? The …

Turtles have a highly modified body plan, including a rigid shell that constrains postcranial
anatomy. Skull morphology and neck mobility may therefore be key to ecological …

We present a simple method of inferring extinct turtle habitats based on four measurements
of the shell (two ratios). These ratios are the maximum width of the carapace to the width of …

We live in a time of accelerated biological extinctions that has the potential to mirror past
mass extinction events. However, the rarity of mass extinctions and the restructuring of …