Anyway, Raymond had posted this photo on his page of him holding a massive snapping turtle. After discussing the photo, he told me that turtles had been around since before the dinosaurs, which I found fascinating. Not because they have been around for so long, but because they have remained hardly changed by the forces of evolution, whereas humanity has basically only existed for what? Less than a million years?
Homo erectus, and homo habilis existed around one and two million years ago, respectively. In that time frame we have evolved into something that can be recognisable as our forbearers, but still vastly different. Whereas, from my point of view, a turtle still looks like a turtle, even 65 million years later. Odontochelys, which is a 220 million transitional fossil, REALLY looks like a turtle to me. 220 million years, and other than ironing out the rough bits, turtle evolution seems to have been a bit slack!
Yeah, I know that it is like comparing prehistoric apples to prehistoric oranges, and I know that just because there is not much of a visible difference, doesn't mean that changes haven't occurred, but I just thought it was interesting. 220 million years of evolution for a turtle, and we can barely see the difference, whereas with only 2 million years of evolution, humans are quite different. Damn, we're a bunch of go-getters!
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