Mystery fossil’s real identity revealed after 132 million years and named after popular Pokémon
THE case of two mysterious fossils has finally been cracked after they were misidentified 50 years ago.
Two small round specimens were collected by a Colombian priest named Padre Gustavo Huertas between the 1950s and 70s.
He found them while fossil hunting in a town called Villa de Levya in Columbia.
Huertas decided the small fossils were plants due to what looked like a leaf pattern on each.
A new study has analyzed the round objects years later and concluded the fossils are actually baby turtles.
Fabiany Herrera from the Field Museum in Chicago said: “We went to the fossil collection at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá and started looking at the plants, and as soon as we photographed them, we thought, ‘This is weird.'”
He added: “When you look at it in detail, the lines seen on the fossils don’t look like the veins of a plant — I was positive that it was most likely bone.”
The fossils are said to date back to a time between 132 and 113 million years ago.
That puts them in the age of the dinosaurs.
Another unusual thing about the find was that the baby turtles were only just hatching when they died.
Paleontologist Edwin-Alberto Cadena was sent photos of the fossils by the researchers.
He said: “They sent me the photos, and I said, ‘This definitely looks like a carapace,’ the bony upper shell of a turtle.”
Once scale photos were sent he released just how young the turtles were.
Cadena explained: “I said, ‘Well, this is remarkable, because this is not only a turtle, but it’s also a hatchling specimen, it’s very, very small.'”
Researchers have now nicknamed the specimen “Turtwig.”
Turtwig is a popular Pokémon that’s half turtle and half plant.