New Paper: A 5 million year old #fossil from Melbourne is the oldest evidence of pig-nosed turtles in Australia, marking a substantial shift in their biogeographic history! 🐢 @Monash_Science
@museumsvictoria Thread 1/7
🎨: @BranArtworks
doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1…
Meet the pig-nosed turtle: a highly aquatic tropical freshwater turtle, and the only surviving species of carettochelyids.
Native to Northern Territory and New Guinea, with fossils found in the Northern Hemisphere; scientists thought they were recent arrivals to Australia. 2/7
However, this fossil was not only found on the opposite end of the continent, it's also 5 million years old. This suggests that pig-nosed turtles have been in Australia longer than we previously thought. 3/7
The fossil was sitting in @museumsvictoria collections for roughly 100 years before my colleagues and I came across it.
By comparing it to modern freshwater turtle shells, and using histology, we were able to identify the fossil as the front of a carettochelyid shell. 4/7
This find is part of a larger story of tropical freshwater turtle dispersals and extinctions.
Gondwana is typically home to side-necked turtles. In the past, pig-nosed and soft-shell turtles dispersed from Asia (over large oceans) to reach Australia's tropical environments. 5/7
The Beaumaris site preserves fossils of extinct tropical animals. As Australia became more arid, these tropical species eventually disappeared. 6/7
🎨: Dorothy Dunphy (Archer et al.1991. Riversleigh. Reed Books)
This pig-nosed turtle paper I the first I ever worked on (back in undergrad), so very happy to finally share our findings with everyone! 7/7
Link to the paper with @KoolLesley @WMGParker @emgfitzgerald
doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1…
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