Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Turtles More Closely Related to Birds Than Lizards and Snakes, Genetic Evidence Shows

Something as surprising to us non-experts is that crocodilians are more closely related to birds rather than to lizards, snakes, and tuataras (never heard of a tuaatara before. It's a reptile from New Zealand)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120523200301.htm

ScienceDaily (May 23, 2012) — The evolutionary origin of turtles is one of the last unanswered questions in vertebrate evolution. Paleontological and morphological studies place turtles as either evolving from the ancestor of all reptiles or as evolving from the ancestor of snakes, lizards, and tuataras. Conflictingly, genetic studies place turtles as evolving from the ancestor of crocodilians and birds.

Having recently looked at more than a thousand of the least-changed regions in the genomes of turtles and their closest relatives, a team of Boston University researchers has confirmed that turtles are most closely related to crocodilians and birds rather than to lizards, snakes, and tuataras.

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