What the Hell is Turtle Evolution?

[@canis2020]

Just think. You're a lizard just chilling on a rock somewhere. Enjoying some sun. Then you ask yourself, "Self? I'm tired of my ribs on the inside. These bugs know what's up. I bet I could push my ribs out of my back and give myself a hug with them." This the turtle was born.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Sounds legit

[@worsethanhitlerpt.2539]

Some scientists think the shell is hindering their evolution and maybe thats why octopuses are evolving so fast they dont even have skeletons or cartlidge

[@vikingskuld]

@@canis2020 lol lol that's hilarious lol. Thanks I needed that laugh

[@Liethen]

turtle skulls have openings at the upper rear of the skull called emarginations. It has been suggested that this is actually the upper fenestrae of diapsids and euryapsids. But the loss of some of the bones at the rear of the turtle skull causes it to open toward the back. Check out the skull of a snapping turtle to see just how big this opening can be.

[@RaptorChatter]

Having looked for it, I am unsure which feature it is. In my herpetology class we discussed the lack of fenestra, but my professor was a snake researcher, so not a ton of time was spent on turtle anatomy. Do you have a source which discusses this idea? Because it sounds fascinating!

[@etherscholar]

Turtles are one of the weirder things on Earth - very interesting creatures. I remember seeing a turtle fossil the size of a car in a museum a long time ago (an Archelon maybe) and it blew my mind.

[@ambystomaguy5825]

Turtles are endlessly fascinating; they're the only animal in evolutionary history to pull their shoulders and pelvis INTO their ribcage! A video on modern turtles would absolutely be worth watching.

[@RaptorChatter]

Good to hear! I have met a few researchers who are well versed in turtles, and especially sea turtles, so I may discuss with them before that.

[@ambystomaguy5825]

@@RaptorChatter Sea turtles get enough attention! Turtles unto themselves are interesting without limiting the scope to a handful of marine species

[@lh3540]

That tuatara is unreasonably cute

[@sampagano205]

Tuataras are always unreasonably cute.

[@RaptorChatter]

They also have one of the lowest functional temps of any reptile about 65 F, 18 C

[@ArtisticlyAlexis]

There’s a newish Netflix kids movie, Leo, with Adam Sandler & Bill Burr playing the 5th grade class pets of a tuatara and a tortoise. It’s surprisingly really good!

[@terranosuchus]

"what if I used my ribs to dig holes" "What if I grew keratin on my ribs" "What if I learned to swim"

[@PelicanMobBoss]

When your ribcage evolves into dome shape and supports keratin armor on it

[@humgergerg666]

I like these types of videos. Please do more of "What the hell is" videos. Turtles and Turtle evolution can be a very difficult and complicated subject indeed.

[@patreekotime4578]

Really cool. And a marine stage seems like it would make sense in terms of the style of predation a marine turtle faces vs the predation say a lizard faces on land.

[@RaptorChatter]

We also see that sort of expansion (not as extreme) of the ribs in burrowing animals, as it helps stabilize the body.

[@jordanslingluff287]

You dont have to fully understand Turtles to know they are cool. I have a little Musk Turtle 🐢 in my living room aquarium. They actually behave similar to dogs. Walk around sniffing, digging holes, running around in circles when they see you. I like to think of them as the dogs of the Mesozoic.

[@RaptorChatter]

We had a turtle as my kindergarten class pet! They're great if you have the space for them.

[@thedarkmasterthedarkmaster]

It's interesting cause given evolutionary trends had Anapsids not gone extinct I could see them having converged on a turtle type body plan. sadly with all these groups extinct we will likely never know for certain.

[@RaptorChatter]

All it takes sometimes is one or two great fossils.

[@thedarkmasterthedarkmaster]

@@RaptorChatter True but DNA is the only absolute answer

[@Tuishimi]

I love turtles.

[@joeshmoe8345]

Thanks a bunch for sharing this with us Big Dog!

[@SiqueScarface]

It of course make sense that turtles diverged from other reptiles shortly before a big extinction event. Because after the extinction event, all ecological niches were open for grabs, and thus the proto-turtles could successfully get on a completely different track.

[@j.l.emerson592]

Myrtle the turtle has two girdles... (we learned that in high school biology...) What about the girdles? Is that a diagnostic feature of turtle evolution? Or is it simply incidental?

[@Leightr]

"Eunotosaurus", "Know him? jerk owes me $20"

[@RaptorChatter]

And then he just went and died

[@michaelniederer2831]

I'm enjoying your explorations into groups and species, both. A small suggestion: when you map fossil distributions, could you use maps of continents as they were then? Thanks.

[@RaptorChatter]

Fair, if anything we might try and do both!

[@BooksMusicMe17]

I may not be your target audience, since I'm a bio person rather than a paleo person, but I enjoy this format very much. After the algorithm recommended me your overestimating size vid, this is what drove me to explore your channel more.

[@zombiedad]

Whooo! Turtle evolution! 👍

[@sciencenerd7639]

6:06 this snake is the coolest thing I ever seen

[@RaptorChatter]

Emerald tree boa. They are available in the pet trade, but buy from a breeder, because not taking more out of the wild is better, and also they can be defensively aggressive, so are usually more show snakes than handling snakes. There are green snakes which are more handlable if that's your interest.

[@misslayer999]

I keep seeing your channel name and thinking it says raptor chapter. I think I'm just going to call it that from now on. Either way, great name, cool channel! Love turtles!

[@aste4949]

More of this content in addition to the regular species focus would be welcome! 😄

[@RaptorChatter]

There's only so many wildly strange animals in the fossil record that aren't related to others, so it's in the plans!

[@yahwea]

I would enjoy a show just on modern turtles with more on where they come from and how they developed.!! Los Angeles

[@nyeti7759]

Excellent video, and your Spongebob reference did not go unappreciated 😁

[@niccage321]

Glad I wasn’t the only one haha

[@cw7429]

Your videos are the best, thank you!

[@RaptorChatter]

You're welcome!

[@anthonyhiggins6342]

The best book on this subject is called Turtles as Hopeful Monsters by Rieppel. How the Turtle Got Its Shell would be more direct, but the title as is is what it is for a reason.

[@petersmythe6462]

Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus is my favorite stem turtle.

[@garrettlich7140]

It’s a theropod dinosaur

[@RaptorChatter]

Everything went extinct 100 Ma, except Spinosaurus, and then we just evolved from it.

[@garrettlich7140]

@@RaptorChatter this is the first time I ever understood satire/sarcasm via text in my life lol (I’m adhd and autistic)

[@bitrage.]

Turtles now know martial arts naturally...

[@sampagano205]

I really hope we can nail down the relationshop of turtles to plesiosaurs, becuase the archosauroform identification seems very strong. They could be a key to understanding marine reptile evolution.

[@RaptorChatter]

I agree, and wouldn't be surprised at all if it happens. The northern Tethys sea sediments in China have provided so many early marine reptiles I feel even a paleobiogeography study might hint at that.

[@JanetStarChild]

I like the idea of turtles being super unique; so, the more ancient and removed their evolution from other reptiles, the better.

[@RaptorChatter]

They're that even if they're related to archosaurs though. They'd have split off from birds and crocs before the Permian, which would make birds and crocs closer related to one another than they are to Turtles, which would be an entirely unique early branching group of archosauriforms.

[@JanetStarChild]

@@RaptorChatter When you put it that way, that does make the turtle lineage sound very ancient!

[@thrushestrange]

That green dinosaur thing painting is ATROCIOUS I couldn’t keep my eyes off it the whole video

[@kensvideos1]

Oh, I thought this was going to be about TMNT. It's still a good video though.

[@ArtisticlyAlexis]

As the proud hooman of Morty the Tortie & Yurtle the _technical_ Turtle I was sure their greatest grandparents were pet rocks!

[@glorbojibbins2485]

400,000th comment Does no one have anything original to say? Lol Rad video dinosaur man.

[@marks.9448]

many people dont even consider turtles (and crocodiles and dinosaurs) as reptiles. because they claim birds arent reptiles. which would mean dinosaurs arent reptiles and non of dinosaurs ancestors are reptiles. this + the fact that dinosaurs share a more common ancestor with crocodiles than either of them with lizards and snakes and turtles share a more recent common ancestor with that ancestor means that if birds arent reptils, neither are turtles and crocodiles (and the non avian dinosaurs)

[@whiteegretx]

Great title 😁

[@holdthetruthhostage]

We all know its the Ooz & being raised in a Sewer that changed them

[@sampagano205]

I wonder how the completeness of fossils in the jehol by group would change if you analyzed it in terms of paravian and non paravian dinosaurs.

[@rileyernst9086]

Papachelyis, father of all turtles.

[@КостяЗозуля-е3я]

I love turtles

[@katyungodly]

I like turtles 🧟‍♂️

[@takenname8053]

"I like turtles!"

[@JENKEM1000]

I wish tubers would stop referring to the end-Permian extinction as the greatest ever. The great oxygenation event killed much more life, %-wise

[@RaptorChatter]

It's not just you tubers, it's researchers. The GOE is hard to quantify, because there were such few fossils, and it came in waves based on banded iron formations.

[@Nik-Name2008]

I have never clicked on a video faster lol. And it paid off, first comment!

[@MimosaGomes]

There's no complication, genetic studies have conclusively shown turtles to be diapsid reptiles that are unrelated to parareptiles. I don't know why you keep retreading this with your videos

[@RaptorChatter]

That is a very fair critique. I am attempting to be fair to both published ideas from the last few years, and the Chinlechelys paper was fairly recent. I agree. They are almost certainly closely related to archosaurs. My only concern is early parareptiles had the diapsid condition, and that far down the tree there's some debate still, so parareptiles, and archosaurs might (unlikely at this point) be sister groups. That is the only reason I hedge my bets in videos like this. It may take only one more fossil from the middle Permian, which more distinctly unites certain groups to resolve this. But that doesn't exist yet, so I wanted to be careful about nailing them down to a single position. That said, at the end I do reiterate that they are probably close to the archosaurs. In 5 years time it probably won't be an issue to say that, but for now there are still some discussions about it.

[@Dr.Ian-Plect]

Of course they are related to parareptiles.

[@whiteegretx]

Cavemen did have technology, actually.

[@jorgevaldez7619]

It is a SpongeBob reference

[@whiteegretx]

@@jorgevaldez7619 - I guess I didn't notice lol

[@SoulDelSol]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! ☢️ 🥷 🗡 🐢 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! ☢️ 🥷 🗡 🐢 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! ☢️ 🥷 🗡 🐢 🍕 🍕 heroes in a half shell 🐚 🐚 🐢 turtle power 🐢

[@vincentboccarossa2313]

Scutosaurus looks goofy 🤡

[@MrGreen-fi5sg]

No

[@MrPeterschmit]

I've long wondered if snapping turtles are among the oldest of the turtles. Painter turtles and such seem somehow more modern. Can you shine a light onto my darkness,?

[@iancarreras9893]

2nd comment

[@alvinip3832]

So they are lizards?

[@RaptorChatter]

No, likely they're equally related to both birds and crocs, but birds and crocs are closer related to each other than to turtles.

[@vikingskuld]

Where is the dna evidence? Without dna you have nothing but guesses hopes and dreams. You dont know anything came before the turtle. It kills me when peple say well these are probably realated but cant prove it.

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

This is from DNA evidence, They can compare the DNA of different animals and compare them

[@vikingskuld]

@@jesusramirezromo2037 yes if your talking about modern day animals. You can't do that with most fossils YET. They love making these little comparisons and say they are related. That's just a hopeful prediction until you can verify it. In the excitement and fairy tale lots really forget to tell you that.

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

@@vikingskuld Except it works with amazing presition, It's not guesswork

[@vikingskuld]

@@jesusramirezromo2037 prove it to me then? You can say what ever and there are scientists who claim to have early human ancestors. Then you find out it was an old Ape but the enlarged the cranium to give it a larger brain size. You know they swear up and down it's related to us. Yet most of that is faked. That's why without DNA MOST ACADEMICS JUST CANT BE TRUSTED.

[@goldwolf0606]

This dude is a boron… turtles are reptiles and it’s not even ambiguous. Cold blooded, air breathing, scaled animals are reptiles.

[@OakenTome]

And where in the video was anything else ever stated, or even implied? The evolution of reptiles isn't a straightforward line, and turtles are different in many ways from other reptiles.

[@davidlacziko1516]

Turtles didn't evolve ...