Jura primitive turtle can swim

According to a new study, about 164 million years ago, the first water turtle lived in lakes, on the island of Skye - Scotland.

Experimental scientific research recently conducted by UCL researchers and the Natural History Museum on Skye Island has discovered a fossil-bearing rock that has been identified as a primitive turtle. Eileanchelys waldmani. After months at the Natural History Museum to remove bones from the rock, four intact preserved fossil turtles along with fossil remains of two other turtles have also been revealed. These fossils, together with a nearby skull, describe the most complete live Jurassic turtle to date. This brings a deeper insight into the early evolution of turtles as well as the ways in which they transform into a variety of different forms that we see today.

Researching the ecological ecology of the fossil detection area - the link between ancient turtles and their environment - shows that these turtles have lived in environments very different from the environment on the island of Skye. now on. The discovered fossil turtle is located next to the fossil of other aquatic creatures such as sharks and salamanders. These species used to live in low salinity, freshwater ponds with a simple food source.

Researchers are cutting rocks to get fossilized turtles. (Photo: Copyright UCL Cell and Developmental Biology)

The research team was led by Dr. Susan Evans of UCL Cell and Development Biology (CDB) and Dr. Paul Barrett (of the Museum of Natural History and an honorary member of CDB). The group includes Jérémy Anquetin (PhD student in Vertebrate Paleontology in the lab of Dr. Evans and the Department of Paleontology at the Natural History Museum). Anquetin is conducting research on the development and classification of primitive turtles and is responsible for describing fossils.Anquetin believes that this finding is extremely significant for our understanding of the primitive turtle.

'Although most modern turtles live under water, we have convincingly demonstrated that most primitive turtles lived in the Triassic period, about 210 million years ago, as terrestrial creatures. Before the discovery of the Eileanchelys turtle we thought that the process of adapting to the water environment might have appeared in the original turtle, but there was no fossil evidence for this. We now know for sure that water turtles appeared in the Jurassic period, about 164 million years ago. This finding also demonstrates that tortoises are more ecologically diverse from the early stages of their evolutionary history than we previously suspected. '

Refer:
Jérémy Anquetin et al.A new beginning from the Jurassic Middle of Scotland: new insights into Evolution and palaeoecology of basal turtles.Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Online November 18, 2008 DOI: 10.1098 / rspb.2008.1429