Video on turtle origins claims, “Turtles are too strange.”

Here’s a video on turtle origins
coming out of a pair of young guys, Will Foster and Paul Gensbigler, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine speaking to Maryland Nature (the NHSM Herp Club).

“Their research program at the Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution aims to unify the fields of paleontology and developmental biology in order to better explain the origins of one of the most charismatic features in Nature: the turtle shell.“

Unfortunately,
Foster and Gensbigler claimed ‘Turtles are too strange’.

In other words, they gave up trying.

Part of the problem is taxon exclusion.
Part two of the problem is relying on textbooks. That happens when you’re young and gathering information. After you gather information you need to test that information.

My comment was posted beneath the video,
which hosted 0 comments in ten months. A refresh of the page made my comment disappear, so perhaps comments are not welcome on this video. So here’s my comment:

Run your own phylogenetic analysis. Don’t trust textbooks, which are out-of-date due to traditional taxon exclusion.

Compete with the large reptile tree (LRT, 2330+ taxa) at ReptileEvolution dot com, which recovered Viséan Silvanerpeton as the last common ancestor of all Reptilia. That makes ‘Amniota’ a junior synonym. The LRT is so large in order to minimize taxon exclusion. It tests all competing taxa for turtle origins.

The first dichotomy in the LRT splits Viséan Archosauromorpha (by definition) from Viséan Lepidosauromorpha. Within Archosauromorpha varanopids give rise to synapsids and the araescelid diapsids. Within Lepidosauromorpha, there’s a long list of sluggish plant eaters, including Caseidae, Diadectomorpha, Stephanospondylus, Pareiasauria and Lepidosauriformes, which also have a diapsid skull architecture by convergence.

Softshell turtles arise from small horned pareiasaurs, like Sclerosaurus and hornless Odontochelys. Hardshell turtles arise from another small horned pareiasaur, Elginia. Meiolania expanded those horns and developed a hard domed shell. Proganochelys lost the horns, kept the armored tail. By convergence, both clades rotated the elbows anteriorly and moved the scapula beneath the ribs, but Meiolania kept lateral elbows, an indication of its primitive nature.

Don’t trust genetic data over deep time. It’s great for tagging criminals and deadbeat dads, but genetic data ignores fossils and recovers untenable results like elephants + golden moles = Afrotheria, or ducks + chickens = galloanseres.

@5:15 you reported, ‘Turtles are too strange’.

Don’t give up! Push forward and run your own analysis. Turtles came from somewhere. Find out where. Use the taxa in the LRT as your guide. Use your own character list.

Finally, there’s a manuscript at ResearchGate titled, ‘the dual origin of turtles from pareiasaurs’.

More comments follow:
Foster and Gensbigler note turtle ribs stick out laterally and consider that odd. Stephanospondylus, Bunostegos (Fig 1) and Sclerosaurus.

Foster and Gensbigler think 9 ribs is odd. Bunostegos (Fig 1) has 10.

Foster and Gensbigler wonder about the origin of the plastron. That origin was covered here in 2017. Foster and Gensbigler hope, without evidence that gastralia contributed to the origin of the plastron, but ancestors lacked gastralia.

The video goes on to look at convergent taxa,
like Pappochelys and Eorhynchochelys hoping these taxa will shed light on turtle origins.

They don’t.

References
Peters D 2018. Dual origin of turtles from pareiasaurs. ResearchGate.net

Phylogenetic origin of the turtle plastron and hypoischium

Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2025/08/21/video-on-turtle-origins-claims-turtles-are-too-strange/