{"id":51608,"date":"2025-09-08T22:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T22:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/51608\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T22:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T22:02:08","slug":"early-cretaceous-fossil-in-swiss-museum-found-to-be-new-species-of-marine-turtle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/51608\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Cretaceous Fossil in Swiss Museum Found to Be New Species of Marine Turtle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paleontologists have described a new species of the extinct turtle genus Craspedochelys based on a remarkable fossil shell and some of its postcranial bones from Colombia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Artistic<\/a><\/p>\n

Artistic reconstruction of Craspedochelys renzi and the shallow marine ecosystem where inhabited; the forelimbs with a flippler like shape is based on the most complete thalassochelydian known so far, Thalassemys bruntrutana. Image credit: Juan Giraldo.<\/p>\n

Craspedochelys renzi lived during the Hauterivian age of the Early Cretaceous epoch, between 132 and 125 million years ago.<\/p>\n

The ancient species was a type of thalassochelydian, a group of marine-adapted turtles from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout their evolution, various unrelated groups of turtles have developed adaptations to live in marine and littoral environments,\u201d said Dr. Edwin-Alberto Cadena, a paleontologist at the Universidad del Rosario, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Field Museum of Natural History, and his colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of these groups is called Thalassochelydia, formed traditionally by three Jurassic families: Eurysternidae, Plesiochelyidae, and Thalassemydidae, with unresolved and controversial phylogenetic relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the three families that constitute the thalassochelydians, \u2018Plesiochelyidae\u2019 is one of the most diverse, including at least ten species in four different genera: Craspedochelys, Plesiochelys, Portlandemys, and Tropidemys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShells of \u2018plesiochelyids\u2019 can be distinguished from other thalassochelydians by exhibiting large sizes (carapace length of 40-55 cm), the absence of carapacial fontanelles in adults, an osseous bridge, and, at most, a central plastral fontanelle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Craspedochelys<\/a><\/p>\n

Craspedochelys renzi represented by an articulated shell with some postcranial bones. Image credit: Cadena et al., doi: 10.1186\/s13358-025-00394-1.<\/p>\n

The fossil specimen of Craspedochelys renzi was initially discovered by the Swiss geologist Otto Renz during a fieldwork expedition to the Cu\u00f1a de Cuiza region, Guajira Department of Colombia in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

The specimen included a partial shell (25.5 cm in length and 23.1 cm in width), hindlimb bones, and caudal vertebrae.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, it was housed at the paleontological collections of the Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, Switzerland, where it remained forgotten for more than 60 years in the cabinets of fossil invertebrate collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeological evidence links the specimen to the Moina Formation, a shallow marine deposit from the Hauterivian,\u201d the paleontologists said.<\/p>\n

The fossil represents the youngest record known so far for thalassochelydians worldwide, from the Hauterivian, and the second record of the group outside of Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe discovery of Craspedochelys renzi represents a significant contribution to the understanding of thalassochelydian, particularly of the \u2018plesiochelyid\u2019 turtles, extending their geographic range to northern Gondwana and their temporal range into the Hauterivian,\u201d the researchers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis finding underscores the importance of reevaluating historical collections and highlights the potential for future discoveries in underexplored regions like northern South America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe presence of Craspedochelys renzi in the Moina Formation further emphasizes the complex paleobiogeographic history of costal and marine turtles during the Early Cretaceous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also offers new insights into the evolutionary dynamics of Thalassochelydia and the still-controversial and unstable phylogenetic relationships within the group, issues that warrant further, in-depth investigation in future studies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery of Craspedochelys renzi is reported in a paper<\/a> in the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

EA. Cadena et al. 2025. The first occurrence of \u2018Plesiochelyidae\u2019 marine turtles in the Early Cretaceous of South America. Swiss J Palaeontol 144, 52; doi: 10.1186\/s13358-025-00394-1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paleontologists have described a new species of the extinct turtle genus Craspedochelys based on a remarkable fossil shell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[37930,11989,37931,37932,8098,18,4696,24060,19,17,37933,37934,37935,133,37936,37937,13647,37938,3167],"class_list":{"0":"post-51608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-carapace","9":"tag-colombia","10":"tag-craspedochelys","11":"tag-craspedochelys-renzi","12":"tag-cretaceous","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-fossil","15":"tag-gondwana","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-marine-turtle","19":"tag-moina-formation","20":"tag-plesiochelyidae","21":"tag-science","22":"tag-sea-turtle","23":"tag-shell","24":"tag-south-america","25":"tag-thalassochelydia","26":"tag-turtle"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}