The century-long fight over how turtles evolved to have shells

[AndreaJames]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/03/14/the-century-long-fight-over-ho.html

…

[Mark_Sniadecki]

The bit about the underside forming a shell first is interesting–I would not have guessed that. I can see the argument for stabilizing the body to help with digging, but I wonder if there was a parallel advantage in mobility (sliding through or sledding over sand/soil) as well?

[Mister44]

Here is a charming story of how the turtle got his shell:

http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TurtleGetsaShell-Anishnabe.html

[Amstrad]

If the plastron benefited mobility then that sort of kills the basis for the theory of turtles developing the carapace for additional protection due to reduced mobility.

[smut_clyde]

Turtles are clockwork entities, devised by James Blaylock as part of the backstory of The Digging Leviathan, only to be released into the environment when anti-steampunk extremists broke into his laboratory.

[smut_clyde]

Russell’s Second Conjecture, that “It’s turtles all the way down”, has only been demonstrated for the first 10⁷ turtles. It has been shown to be mathematically equivalent to the Riemann Hypothesis, so if a tortoise or terrapin is found, the corollary follows that there must be a corresponding non-trivial zero of the Zeta Function with a real part ≠ ½.

Both conjectures are equivalent to Dunsany’s Recursive Theology, which states that it’s chess-playing gods all the way up.

[DimeSpin]

This video is a good example of why I love PBS Eons - There’s been a tendency with a lot of the other youtube science shows I’ve watched to cover things I already know about and only rarely surprise me. I often watched them for simpler ways to explain things I already knew, or to remember them for later when I might want to tell someone else about a topic and don’t have time to re-explain the basics. Eons consistently brings up stuff I just straight up did not know. Like what order turtle shell bits evolved in.