Fossil points to origin of turtle shell

Rieppel said he thinks the fact that Odontochelys had only belly armor supports the argument that turtles first evolved in the water – an idea he and Riesz proposed in 1999, stirring hot controversy in paleontological circles.

“Their ventral body armor speaks to how turtles originated in a marine environment, protecting them from predators that could attack them from below,” he said.

Reisz calls turtles “one of history's great success stories.”

“A lot of animals have armor, but none did it as elegantly as the turtle,” he said. “They appeared on Earth about the time of dinosaurs, and they are still part of our biota, 65 million years after the extinction of dinosaurs.”