07.26.11
Turtles Next to Lizards On Family Tree
Turtles Next to Lizards On Family Tree, Discovery Based On microRNAs Shows
ScienceDaily (July 25, 2011) — Famous for their sluggishness, turtles have been slow to give up the secrets of their evolution and place on the evolutionary tree. For decades, paleontologists and molecular biologists have disagreed about whether turtles are more closely related to birds and crocodiles or to lizards. Now, two scientists from the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, and their colleagues from Dartmouth College and Harvard and Yale Universities have developed a new technique using microRNAs for classifying animals, and the secret is out. Turtles are closer kin to lizards than crocodiles.