A University of Pennsylvania
paleontologist has described a 5.5 million-year-old fossil species of turtle
from eastern Tennessee. It represents a new species of the genus Trachemys,
commonly known as sliders, which are frequently kept as pets today.
Steven Jasinski, author of the
new study, is a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania and acting
curator of paleontology and geology at the State Museum of Pennsylvania. He is
completing his Ph.D. at Penn under Peter Dodson, a professor of paleontology in
the Department of Earth and Environmental Science in the School of Arts and
Sciences and a professor of anatomy in the School of Veterinary Medicine.
The study investigated a fossil
turtle found around the Miocene-Pliocene boundary in the Gray Fossil Site, an
area rich with fossils in eastern Tennessee near East Tennessee State
University, where Jasinski completed his master's degree. The site represents
an ancient sinkhole surrounded by a forest from which dozens of fossil animal
species have been characterized, including new species of red panda, Eurasian
badger, kinosternid turtle, and colubrid snake.
Thorough examination of the
dozens of turtle fossils from the site revealed important differences between
this turtle and other known fossil and living species. Jasinski named the
fossil turtle Trachemys haugrudi,
after Shawn Haugrud, the lab and field manager and lead preparer at the Gray
Fossil Site.
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