HARROW: Scientists say that 240-million-year-old fossils unearthed in a quarry in southern Germany represent the grandfather of all turtles, which looked like an odd lizard with a bulky body and had only the skeletal precursor of a shell.
Scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery of the oldest known turtle, an 8-inch (20-cm) Triassic Period reptile combining traits of its lizard-like ancestors with a set of emerging turtle-like features.
They named it Pappochelys, meaning “grandfather turtle,” owing to its position at the base of the turtle family tree.
“Pappochelys indeed forms a missing link for two reasons. It is far older than all so far known turtles. And its anatomy is more primitive in many features, showing the ancestral condition of various body regions,” said paleontologist Rainer Schoch of Germany’s State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart.
It is 20 million years older than the previous earliest-known turtle, Odontochelys from China. While Odontochelys boasted a rudimentary shell on its back, Pappochelys bore only the beginnings of this characteristic turtle trait, which evolved in many steps over tens of millions of years.
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