Biologists dream in the superlative. Whales are the largest mammals, cheetahs are the fastest vertebrates, bar-headed geese fly the highest of any bird, and so forth. But you would be hard pressed to think of superlative features when it comes to turtles, or even reptiles. Rest assured there are superlatives in this order. Superlatives among reptiles are still with us. Marine turtles, in some form, date from at least the Trias sic period as early as 220 million years ago. For the next 100 million years, there was a rich diversity of other marine reptiles as well, but most of these were lost by the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago. Yet, marine turtles endured.
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