rdfs:comment
| - Testudinata, the turtles, form an ancient clan of amniotes far removed from any other living group. Their lineage can be traced back to the Triassic, when heavily-scaled early turtles with beaks but tooth-paved palates crawled along the banks of rivers, relying on their enlarged armour plates to protect them from predators; their closest known relatives, however, magnificent armoured plant-eaters that commonly reached the size of today's biggest panzertoitles, died out at the end of the Permian.
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abstract
| - Testudinata, the turtles, form an ancient clan of amniotes far removed from any other living group. Their lineage can be traced back to the Triassic, when heavily-scaled early turtles with beaks but tooth-paved palates crawled along the banks of rivers, relying on their enlarged armour plates to protect them from predators; their closest known relatives, however, magnificent armoured plant-eaters that commonly reached the size of today's biggest panzertoitles, died out at the end of the Permian. The two most speciose clades of turtles, the Pleurodira and the Polycryptodira, have evolved the remarkable ability to withdraw their heads into their shells by different methods. (Occasionally, this ability has been secondarily lost.)
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