Overviews JOURNAL OF CREATION 21(3) 2007

Turtles are ideal animals for testing evolutionary ideas because some of their most unique structures, such as their hard shells, preserve extremely well in the fossil record. What also makes turtles perfect candidates for studying evolution is that their body plan is unique among tetrapods, and would require ‘some remarkable changes in the skeleton and internal organs ’ as they evolved from a typical tetrapod to a carapace-plastron clad turtle.1,2 An example is that the scapula of vertebrates is outside the rib cage, but in turtles the scapula, the humerus and several other bones are all inside of the rib cage.3 Moreover, breathing is very different compared with other reptiles because the turtle chest is not distensible.4 Therefore, if turtle evolution were true, we would expect the fossil record to provide a better record of intermediate morphologies than for many other vertebrates. However, the evidence for such ‘missing links’ is still missing. The fossil record Extensive fossil turtle deposits extending back to the Triassic5 have been found throughout the world, includin