8-Year-Old's Fossil Discovery Explains Why Turtles Have Shells

The turtle's shell may serve as a protective shield nowadays, but ancient turtles actually developed shells for an entirely different reason, a new study finds. "Why the turtle shell evolved is a very Dr. Seuss-like question, and the answer seems pretty obvious — it was for protection," lead study author Tyler Lyson, a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, said in a statement. The evolutionary history of the turtle shell has long my