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Sea turtles can be found in all oceans except for the polar regions. The flatback sea turtle is found solely on the northern coast of Australia. The Kemp's ridley sea turtle is found solely in the Gulf of Mexico and along the East Coast of the United States. [30] Sea turtles are generally found in the waters over continental shelves.
Dermochelyidae is a family of sea turtles which has seven extinct genera and one extant genus, containing one living species, the leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). The oldest fossils of the group date to the Late Cretaceous .
Sea turtles, and several extinct forms, have evolved a bony secondary palate which completely separates the oral and nasal cavities. [30] The necks of turtles are highly flexible, possibly to compensate for their rigid shells. Some species, like sea turtles, have short necks while others, such as snake-necked turtles, have long ones.
Sea turtles: there are seven extant species of sea turtles, which live mostly along the tropical and subtropical coastlines, though some do migrate long distances and have been known to travel as far north as Scandinavia. Sea turtles are largely solitary animals, though some do form large, though often loosely connected groups during nesting ...
Americhelydia is a clade of turtles that consists of sea turtles, snapping turtles, the Central American river turtle and mud turtles, supported by several lines of molecular work. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] Prior to these studies some morphological and developmental work have considered sea turtles to be basal members of Cryptodira and kinosternids ...
Modern turtles have a horny beak without teeth in their mouth. In contrast, Odontochelys fossils were found to have had teeth embedded in their upper and lower jaws. [4] One of the most striking features of turtles, both modern and prehistoric alike, are their dorsal shells, forming an armored carapace over the body of the animal.
Instead of the fully fused, hydrodynamic paddles that modern sea turtles possess, the early sea turtle's digits were distinct and movable similar to those of non-marine turtles. Like later sea turtles though, Santanachelys had large salt glands situated near its eyes, which aided in the excretion of excess salt. This was an adaptation to the ...
For a long time, modern Leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys) were believed to be descended directly from Psephophorus, [9] specifically the species P. polygonus. [10] However, a 1996 analysis by Wood et al. proved that most of the taxa in the two genera were not connected, meaning Psephophorus could not be a direct ancestor of the modern leatherbacks. [9]