Techniques developed to study the distant past—from dating ancient artifacts to reconstructing climate records in ice cores—are now being repurposed to help us better understand the lives of modern ...

Learn how researchers use archaeological techniques to show how sea turtle shells grow in layers that capture chemical clues about diet, movement, and ocean change over time.

Turtles with shell-cracking jaws were far more likely to survive extinction due to their ability to be sustained on a restricted diet.

Cartoons often suggest turtles wear shells like removable armor. Those stories show turtles stepping out, swapping shells, or treating them like clothing. Biology disagrees. A turtle shell is not an ...

Quick Take Turtles bask in April to raise their body temperature, boost metabolism, and resume their seasonal activity after ...

Every young boy has spent at least one afternoon digging a hole in the ground looking for some kind of treasure. An eight-year-old from South Africa was doing just that when he unearthed a turtle ...

A new study shows how scientists can use animals' physical features -- also known as morphology -- to make connections between a modern species and its fossilized relatives, even if they look ...

The discovery, in China, of the oldest known turtle fossil has turned palaeontologists' understanding of the species' origin and ecology on its head. The fossil of Odontochelys semitestacea was found ...

How smushed shells could help to resolve paleontological mysteries. By Asher Elbein You never know where a bit of unusual scientific research is going to lead. Consider a 2012 study about turtle ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Imagine that Labradors and golden retrievers died out a million years ago, leaving only fossilized skeletons behind. Without the help of DNA, how could we determine that a fossil ...