14" Inflated Fossil Tortoise (Stylemys) - South Dakota

Inflated Fossil Tortoise (Stylemys) - South Dakota #227425

This is a large, 14" long shell (carapace and plastron) of an Oligocene age tortoise (Stylemys nebrascensis) from the White River Formation in the Badlands of South Dakota. It is nicely inflated with minimal crushing, unlike many specimens.

It comes with an acrylic display stand.

Stylemys ("pillar turtle") is the first fossil genus of dry land tortoise discovered in the United States. They lived in temperate to subtropical areas of North America, Europe, and Asia.

These extinct tortoises had primitive jaw muscles, unlike today's tortoises that also display the os transiliens bone, and would have been herbivorous. While Stylemys species did exhibit the same neck structure as modern tortoises, the forelimbs weren't ideal for burrowing.