Turtles are endlessly fascinating to scientists. Their biology is unique. They were around with the dinosaurs and survived the forces that led to their extinction. And now it turns out they have more in common with birds and those extinct dinosaurs than with reptiles.

From Science World Report:

It turns out that, surprisingly, turtles are not primitive reptiles as previously thought. Instead, they are related to the group that is made up of birds and crocodilians and also includes extinct dinosaurs. It's likely that the turtles split from this group about 250 million years ago during one of the largest extinction events on the planet.

"Turtles are interesting because they offer an exceptional case to understand the big evolutionary changes that occurred in vertebrate history," said Naoki Irie from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in a news release. "The work not only provides insight into how turtles evolved, but also gives hints as to how the vertebrate developmental programs can be changed to produce major evolutionary novelties."

Read more here.

Photo: (Photo : Flickr/USFWS)