Shell-less Turtle Ancestor Linked to Birds & Crocodiles

[sauroid]

http://www.discovery.com/dscovrd/wildlife/shell-less-turtle-ancestor-linked-to-birds-crocodiles/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=DiscoveryChannel

[triceratops83]

So they're no longer anapsids? Pretty cool.

[Balaur]

So... Turtles are archosaurs.... Well then, hell yeah!!!!

[sauroid]

So they're no longer anapsids? Pretty cool.

that's what i was curious about too.
ATTN: DTF member stemturtle (he might be able to enlighten us in this matter)

[Halichoeres]

Amniotes seem to be primitively anapsid, but DNA has been telling us for a while now that turtles are closer to living "reptiles" and/or birds than to mammals, so at least molecular-trained evolutionary biologists have considered them diapsids for a few years now. It's cool that the fossils are starting to back that up.

[sauroid]

related news:
http://phys.org/news/2015-09-scientists-key-clues-turtle-evolution.html

[stemturtle]

...
ATTN: DTF member stemturtle (he might be able to enlighten us in this matter)

Sauroid, thanks for posting the links about Eunotosaurus. We still need more fossils in order to discover a common ancestor for stem-turtles and archosaurs. As Bever asked in the second article, "Which of the other diapsid groups form their closest cousin?"
Recent  research is very exciting.

[Dinoguy2]

...
ATTN: DTF member stemturtle (he might be able to enlighten us in this matter)

Sauroid, thanks for posting the links about Eunotosaurus. We still need more fossils in order to discover a common ancestor for stem-turtles and archosaurs. As Bever asked in the second article, "Which of the other diapsid groups form their closest cousin?"
Recent  research is very exciting.

Yeah, the next step is resolving this. Correct me if I'm wrong about the relative number of studies here, but it seems like most recent fossil-based morphological phylogenies have found the turtle lineage to be lepidosauromorphs, while most genie-based molecular phylogenies have found them to be archosauromorphs. Studies incorporating both lines of evidence found them to be archosauromorphs, but I know some OTHER genetic studies supported lepidosauromorph status.

Awesomely, it seems like the consensus is pretty much solidifying around sauropterygians as the closest extinct relatives of turtles, no matter which branch of diapsids they're on. The genetic+fossil study even found plesiosaurians and placodonts paraphyletic with respect to turtles, meaning turtles are sauropterygians. Sauropterygians are to turtles what dinosaurs are to birds!

[Halichoeres]

Sauropterygians are to turtles what dinosaurs are to birds!

Namely, stem turtles!