Turtles use muscle power to breathe due to rigid shell

Friday, November 7, 2014 - 06:00 in Biology & Nature

Turtle shells are unique in the animal kingdom. In order to be able to breathe in this inflexible casing, tortoises have a muscle sling which is attached to the shell to ventilate the lung. A team of researchers including paleontologist Torsten Scheyer from the University of Zurich can now reveal that the turtle's ancestor Eunotosaurus africanus already breathed with the aid of such a sling—even though it did not yet have a solid shell.

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