Published today, in press: Jenkins X, Peecook B, Choiniere J ... The phylogenetic origin of turtles Current Biology, 2026 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.070 The evolutionary origins of turtles remain poorly understood. Molecular systematics posit a sister relationship between turtles and archosaurs, but morphological studies return conflicting hypotheses of turtle relationships both to other living reptiles and to their closest fossil relatives. The middle Permian Eunotosaurus africanus has been widely regarded as the oldest stem turtle, which makes it instrumental in recent discussions of the origins of turtles and their highly transformed anatomy. Here, we use anatomical observations derived from X-ray computed microtomography (μCT) of Eunotosaurus and candidate stem turtles to evaluate phylogenetic hypotheses of turtle origins.…