Nine years after its discovery in the badlands of southeastern Alberta, Canada, a 75-million-year-old fossil of a pregnant turtle has finally made its public debut.
At 40 centimetres long, its turtle shape is still evident and most of its skeleton is complete but its shell is crushed. The pregnant fossil was found in 1999. Six years later, a fossilized nest of eggs was found from the same species about 50 kilometres away.
Both specimens belong to an extinct turtle called Adocus, a large river turtle that lived with the dinosaurs and resembles today's slider and cooter turtles.
"It is the first fossil of a pregnant turtle found in the world and it's only the second fossil of an animal found in the world that's pregnant," explained Darla Zelenitsky, a University of Calgary scientist whose expertise is fossil nest sites.
View a video here.
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