“It was really surprising to find these fossils,” says Héctor Palma-Castro. He is a paleobotany student at the National University of Colombia. What had studying him revealed? The fossil of the plant that was a turtle.
The ‘plants’ in question had been described by Huertas in 2003 as ‘Sphenophyllum colombianum’. The fossils come from rocks from the Early Cretaceous, between 132 and 113 million years ago. It was during the era of the dinosaurs.
shell parts
The plants sparked the interest of Fabiany Herrera, associate curator at the Field Museum in Chicago (United States), and his student, Palma-Castro. “We saw the plants, and as soon as we photographed them we thought: ‘this is strange,'” Herrera recalls. He collects Early Cretaceous plants from northwestern South America.
«The lines seen in fossils do not look like the veins of a plant. “I was sure that it was most likely bone,” adds Herrera. “This certainly looks like a carapace, the bony upper part of a turtle’s shell. This is extraordinary, because it is not just a turtle. Furthermore, it is a newborn specimen, it is very, very small.’
Cadena and his student, Diego Cómbita-Romero, of the National University of Colombia, further examined the specimens, comparing them to the shells of fossil and modern turtles. “The fossil was missing the typical markings on the outside of a turtle’s shell. We realized that the visible part of the fossil was the other side of the shell. “We were looking at the part of the shell that is inside the turtle.”
Pokemon
The turtle died with a slightly developed shell, between 0 and 1 year old. It is very rare to find fossil turtle hatchlings in general. When turtles are very young, the bones in their shells are very thin. “They can be easily destroyed.”
The plant fossil that was a turtle received a curious name. They nicknamed the specimens ‘Turtwig’, after a half-turtle, half-plant Pokémon. «In the Pokémon universe you come across the concept of combining two or more elements, such as animals, machines, plants, etc. Here you have a fossil initially classified as a plant that turns out to be a baby turtle. A few Pokémon immediately come to mind. In this case, Turtwig, a baby turtle with a leaf attached to its head.”
