'Missing link' Turtle Was Swimming With Dinosaurs

Editor's Note-

Okay, so this is not really marine conservation or science news, but its turtles, and what DPG reader doesn't love turtles?

A previously unknown species of primitive turtle made the move from land to water 164 million years ago, fossils found on the Isle of Skye indicate.

Excavations on the island have yielded the remains of at least six turtles that learnt to swim during the age of the dinosaurs.

Eileanchelys waldmani, the species that started swimming in the island’s lakes and lagoons, represents the missing link in the evolution of turtles that palaeontologists have long sought.

Its limbs were similar to those of modern freshwater turtles rather than the flippers of sea-going species, but are likely to have had webbing between the claws.