Malayan flat-shelled turtles are notoriously hard to keep in captivity. Many turtles arrive stressed and sick, often due to being trafficked through the illegal animal trade.

Interestingly, other early fossils of different turtle species had shells but no beaked jaws. The dawn beak turtle had a beak but no shell, but modern turtles have all of the above.

As ancient turtle’s ribs fused into the shells they are known for today, they would have had a harder time breathing. All the while, as their midsections stiffened, they would have become slower.

Unlike their hard-shelled cousins, these turtles have leathery, flat, green or brown shells. These large, freshwater turtles are also known as "frog-faced softshells" because of their amphibian ...

Such turtles are members of a group that split off the turtles’ evolutionary tree 100 million years ago. They have flat, leathery shells, long […] Skip to content. All Sections. Subscribe Now.

Modern turtle shells certainly make for potent defenses, but the wide ribs of Eunotosaurus and Pappochelys do not. They wouldn’t even have covered the creatures’ heads, necks, or backs.

How the Turtle Got Its Shell, ... The domed carapace covering the back of the animal is connected to the flat plastron on the underside of the animal by a bridge of bone.

The dawn beak turtle had a beak but no shell, but modern turtles have all of the above. This strongly hints that the evolution of the species we see on Earth today is likely far more complicated ...

A 260 million-year-old fossil has been determined to be the oldest ancestor of turtles found to date, revealing something about the reptile's mysterious past.

Video: How the turtle got its shell Embryo of a Chinese soft-shelled turtle ... but an incomplete carapace. Its ribs were short, wide, and flat like modern turtles, but the osteoderms were absent.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Zoo Knoxville has made history, successfully hatching the first Malayan flat-shelled turtle at any Association of Zoos and Aquariums accredited facility. For a species that ...