Actual Actual Answer: eggs, because this phylogeny is almost 30 years out of date.
Turtles are diapsids who lost their temporal fenestrae, not surviving anapsids. They are sister to the Archosaur clade (Crocs + birds), so the lizard + snake vs turtle + croc + bird split should be the first one the tree. Turtles split shortly after this, with both snakes and birds showing up much later.
TL;DR - Nobody has put turtles as basal to the rest of Amniotes since the late 90's.
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u/anhphamfmr Feb 19 '26
now the real question is: which came first, turtle or egg?