Introduction After decades of debate on the origin of turtles, it is now widely accepted that
they are diapsid reptiles originating in the Permian from a terrestrial ancestor. It seems that …

Chronostratigraphic correlation of terrestrial Early Cretaceous biotas in China is highly
problematic due to the lack of marine deposits, few absolute dates, and limited number of …

ABSTRACT A reexamination of the holotype of 'Plesiochelys' tatsuensis Yeh, 1963, from the
Late Jurassic of China, allows us to establish previously unknown characters of this species …

Abstract Background Turtles (Testudinata) are a successful lineage of vertebrates with about
350 extant species that inhabit all major oceans and landmasses with tropical to temperate …

Unlike any other tetrapod, turtles form their dorsal bony shell (carapace) not from
osteoderms, but by contribution of the ribs and vertebrae that expand into the dermis to form …

Morphological phylogenies stand in a major conflict with molecular hypotheses regarding
the phylogeny of Cryptodira, the most diverse and widely distributed clade of extant turtles …

The Triassic is a key period in turtle evolution for three main reasons: First, the oldest fully
shelled body-fossil records of the clade Testudinata come from Late Triassic (Norian) rocks …

Background Most turtles from the Middle and Late Jurassic of Asia are referred to the newly
defined clade Xinjiangchelyidae, a group of mostly shell-based, generalized, small to mid …

The article discusses the recent discovery of a primitive stem turtle known as Odontochelys
semitestacea from the lower Upper Triassic in China. Paleoecology, the formation of turtle …

Background The phylogenetic placement of Cretaceous marine turtles, especially
Protostegidae, is still under debate among paleontologists. Whereas protostegids were …