AMES, Iowa – In their long strings of nucleotides, DNA molecules hold massive troves of genetic data providing instructions for how living organisms should function – the blueprint of life. How the ...

Turtles (Testudines) have captivated evolutionary biologists for decades due to their distinct morphology and ancient origins. Recent studies have elucidated the evolutionary transformations that led ...

Scientists have generated the genome assemblies of two hidden-neck turtles, unpublished until now. The results, which revealed a new three-dimensional structure of the genome within the phylogenetic ...

Let’s travel back in the mind’s eye, to the late Cretaceous. We’re a half a million years or so before an asteroid will impact at Chicxulub, killing off approximately 80% of all species around the ...

AMES, Iowa – A new study led by an Iowa State University scientist sheds light on how organisms have evolved to address imbalances in sex chromosomes. The study looks at a species of softshell turtle, ...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 118, No. 7 (February 16, 2021), pp. 1-10 (10 pages) Living turtles are characterized by extraordinarily low ...

Scientists describe the find of a new softshell turtle from the end of the Cretaceous Period. A newly described softshell turtle that lived in North Dakota 66.5 million years ago at the end of the ...

After the last known female Yangtze giant softshell turtle died at China’s Suzhou Zoo, leaving one captive male and a few in the wild, the species is now closer to extinction than ever before. But are ...