How the turtle got its shell
A paleontological mystery solved
Rudyard Kipling seems to have covered the bases with his “Just So” stories: how the camel got its hump, how the rhino got its skin, how the leopard got its spots.
But it seems that he forgot one. How did the turtle get its shell?
It is one of the oldest debates in paleontology, But two paleontologists, Walter Joyce, collections manager at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, and Spencer Lucas, of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, have put it to rest. Two decades ago, Lucas and his team unearthed a 210-million-year-old turtle shell in New Mexico....
this is so adorable!