Walter G. Joyce

TL;DR: A specimen-based protocol for selecting and documenting relevant fossils is presented and future directions for evaluating and utilizing phylogenetic and temporal data from the fossil record are discussed, to establish the best practices for justifying fossils used for the temporal calibration of molecular phylogenies.

TL;DR: This work may provide a useful road map to those intent on converting their traditional rank-based nomenclatures to explicitly phylogenetic nomenClatures under the precepts of the PhyloCode.

TL;DR: This revised topology has important implications for the evolution of several character complexes, because it implies that the common ancestor of all living turtles must have had a partially braced brain case and a primitive trochlear mechanism.

TL;DR: The results demonstrate that a posteriori approaches can lead to the selection of erroneous calibrations in divergence time analyses and suggest the most effective means of establishing the quality of fossil-based calibrations is through a priori evaluation of the intrinsic palaeontological, stratigraphic, geochronological and phylogenetic data.

TL;DR: The palaeoecology of extinct turtles is investigated by first demonstrating that the forelimbs of extant turtles faithfully reflect habitat preferences, and it is found that although the common ancestor of all living turtles was aquatic, the earliest turtles clearly lived in a terrestrial environment.