Turtle Genome
Embryology plays a critical role in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The “leading facts in embryology … [were] second to none in importance,” he argued in The Origin of Species.
Illustrations of embryos by Ernst Haeckel, a German biologist, influenced Darwin. Haeckel’s drawings portray embryos repeating the steps of evolution, known as the “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” theory.
It is thought that genes drive evolution through natural selection. Since turtles have a unique body plan, studying the turtle genome during embryonic development is expected to give insight into their origin.
