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Two ancient works fogey garner by a Colombian priest more than 50 years ago are actually rarefied hatchling turtle from the long time of the dinosaurs , a new study has found .
Padre Gustavo Huertas collected the leaf - shape fossils near the town of Villa de Leyva between the fifties and 1970s and later describe them as nonextant plants . But the generator of a new study , published Dec. 7 in the journalPalaeontologia Electronica , have now revealed they are n’t leaves at all — they ’re tiny polo-neck shells .
A drawing of the turtle’s ribs and backbone superimposed onto the fossil.
The fossils , which measure out 2 inch ( 5 centimeter ) and 2.4 inch ( 6 centimeter ) long respectively , see back to the Aptian age ( 125 million to 113 million days ago ) of theCretaceous(145 million to 66 million years ago ) . They are the first hatchling marine turtles on platter from that full point in northern South America .
The find was " truly surprising , " written report lead authorHéctor Palma - Castro , a paleobotany scholarly person at the National University of Colombia , said in astatementreleased by the Field Museum in Chicago .
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Huertas originally described the fogy asSphenophyllum colombianum , which placed them in a group of works that otherwise lived between the LateDevonian(419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago ) and thePermian(298.9 million to 251.9 million year ago ) .
The unusual age and neck of the woods of these fossils caught the heart of Palma - Castro and his supervisory program , conscientious objector - authorFabiany Herrera , the adjunct conservator of fossil plants at the Field Museum , and the pair decided to re - examine them .
" As before long as we photographed them , we thought , ' this is uncanny , ' " Herrera say .
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The squad determined that the fossils came from the upper racing shell of marine turtle . Based on the size and heaviness of the shells and the growth pattern of living turtles , they concluded that the animals were no more than 1 year quondam when they died .
" This is actually really rarefied to find hatchlings of fossil turtle in general , " Cadena said . " When the turtles are very young , the bone in their shells are very thin , so they can be easily destroy . "
The authors save in the report that the shells could be fromDesmatochelys padillai — theoldest ocean turtleon criminal record — incur in the same fogy deposits , but they could n’t be sure without a unadulterated hatchling skeleton . " In paleontology , your imagination and capacity to be amazed are always put to the test , " Palma - Castro said . " Discoveries like these are truly especial because they not only expand our knowledge about the past times but also unfold a window to the diverse possibilities of what we can uncover . "
These are n’t the first Cretaceous fossils from Colombia to be misidentified . old research has revealed that a purported chocolate plant was actually part of a maritime reptile jaw , while a presumed Cretaceous fruit turned out to be a banana - shaped stone , according to the field .
" We resolved a small paleobotanical mystery , but more significantly , this written report shows the demand to re - study historical collections in Colombia , " Herrera say .
