It looked like an odd lizard with a bulky body and only the skeletal precursor of a shell, but scientists say 240 million-year-old fossils unearthed in a quarry in southern Germany represent the grandfather of all turtles.
The scientists announced the discovery in Nature on June 24 of the oldest-known turtle, a 20cm-long Triassic Period reptile combining traits of its lizard-like ancestors with a set of emerging turtle-like features.
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