11.1" Inflated Fossil Tortoise (Stylemys) - South Dakota

Inflated Fossil Tortoise (Stylemys) - South Dakota #197385

This is a captivating, 11.1" 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 very inflated, not extremely crushed like many specimens from this location and has a unique terracotta red preservation.

It comes with an acrylic display stand.

As one would imagine, extracting a full tortoise shell is not an easy process. Therefore there are a few areas where cracks have been repaired and gap fill restoration was necessary. These areas are near the scutes where the carapace and plastron meet. The posterior and anterior scutes of the plastron have some gap fill restoration that bears mentioning.

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.