Researchers have found a new species of reptile which they say is an ancestor of modern turtles. The 240 million-year-old fossils were found in sediments of a Triassic freshwater lake in southern Germany. The species, named Pappochelys (“grandfather turtle”) rosinae, could help settle a long-running debate about how turtles evolved.
Pappochelys wouldn’t have looked much like modern turtles at first glance. For one thing, it didn’t have a shell; the ancestors of modern turtles didn’t evolve shells until about 26 million years after Pappochelys. But the early makings of a shell are visible in Pappocheyls’ skeleton. Its ribs are broad, with a T-shaped cross-section, and it has a hard wall of bones along its belly. It also had a long, whip-like tail that accounted for half of the little reptile’s 8-inch length, quite unlike the stubby tails of its descendants. And the turtles we know today don’t have teeth – ...
