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Monday, November 23, 2009

Photo: Earliest Swimming Turtle Fossils Found -- New Species


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Fossils of a new species of turtle—the earliest known swimming turtle—have been uncovered on an island in northwest Britain, scientists reported this week.

Four crushed but intact skeletons had been found along with the remains of two other specimens, in a single slab of rock in 2004 on Scotland's Isle of Skye. Since then, researchers have painstakingly freed the fossils.

The fossils belonged to a pond turtle, Eileanchelys waldmani, which bridges the evolutionary gap between primitive land turtles and modern aquatic turtles.

Drawing by artist Robert F. Laws and photograph by Jérémy Anquetin