Turtles can be confusing animals, since they have characteristics that are traditionally associated with both reptiles and amphibians. For example, their smooth skin makes most people think of ...

Reptiles are air-breathing vertebrates covered in special skin made up of scales, bony plates, or a combination of both. They include crocodiles, snakes, lizards, turtles, and tor- toises. All ...

For the more than 242 million years that lizards and snakes appear in the fossil record, they show up mostly as pieces of lizard jaws and snake vertebrae. Exactly why these parts survive as fossils ...