Shell Shock: Turtle Development Secret Revealed
(Original post: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=shell-shock-turtle-development-secr-09-07-10)
[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
It sounds like the title to a Rudyard Kipling tale: how the turtle got its shell. But it’s actually a question that has puzzled scientists. After all, no other animal, living or extinct, has a similarly constructed bony shield surrounding its body. Scientists had thought that, over evolutionary time, small bony plates fused with the animal’s skin. But a new study published July 10th in the journal Science offers a different pathway.