Paleontologists have identified a new species of meiolaniform turtle from northern Patagonia, Argentina, that lived during the Maastrichtian age, just before the asteroid-triggered mass extinction that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs.
An artist’s impression of Patagoniaemys aeschyli. Image credit: Nawel Vazquez / Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia’ / CONICET.
The newly-identified turtle species lived in what is now Patagonia during the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous epoch, between 72 and 67 million years ago.
Named Patagoniaemys aeschyli, it belonged to a lineage that included some of the most unusual turtles ever known.
Meiolaniformes are famous for heavily armored bodies and, in some species, horned skulls.
“Meiolaniformes represent a group of turtles that includes the well-known horned species Niolamia argentina (Patagonia) and Meiolania platyceps (Australia),” said lead author Dr. Federico Agnolin, a paleontologist at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia,’ the Univers