9" Colorful Fossil Tortoise (Stylemys) w/ Visible Limb Bones

Colorful Fossil Tortoise (Stylemys) w/ Visible Limb Bones #280878

This is a beautiful and colorful, 9" tortoise (Stylemys nebrascensis) shell from the White River Formation in Wyoming. Both the carapace and the plastron are present, along with exposed limb bones within the rock. It is well inflated, in good condition and largely intact. Many of the tortoises from this formation are quite compressed, so this specimen is really something special.

The marginal scutes along the anterior and posterior edges have spots of crack repair and gap fill, some of which have been completely restored. The plastron was fairly crushed, requiring restoration in multiple areas.

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.