Tag Archives: turtle

Ancient Footprints May Capture Turtle Flocks Disrupted by Earthquakes

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Possible turtle footprints in Monte Conero, Italy

Paolo Sandroni

Unusual marks found on rocky surfaces in Italy may have been created by a group of sea turtles reacting to an earthquake around 83 million years ago.

Extreme climbers stumbled upon a peculiar feature in a restricted area on the slopes of Monte Conero along Italy’s east coastline.

Over 1,000 prints are evident in two distinct spots. One location is situated over 100 meters above sea level, while the other is a ledge that collapsed onto La Vera Beach. These limestone rocks were formed from fine sediments that settled on the shallow ocean floor during the Cretaceous era.

The climbers captured photographs that were subsequently shared with the Alessandro Montanari Cordigioco Geological Observatory in Italy and colleagues. Scientists were then granted permission by the Conero Regional Park authority to explore the area both on foot and using drones.

Montanari mentioned that while it is challenging to identify which animal made the marks, the only two types of vertebrates inhabiting the ocean then were fish and marine reptiles. The researchers dismissed fish, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs, leading to the conclusion that sea turtles are the most probable culprits.

Given the dynamic nature of the ocean floor, the prints must have been buried almost immediately after formation to remain intact, potentially occurring during an earthquake.

“[It may have been] the powerful earthquake that frightened the poor animals, which were peacefully residing in their nutrient-rich shallow-water habitat,” states Montanari.

“In panic, they swam towards the open sea on the west side of the reef, leaving paddle impressions on the soft seabed.”

However, the notion of a turtle swarm remains speculative, and the team is eager to collaborate with ichthyologists who specialize in analyzing fossilized tracks for the next phase of their research.

Anthony Romilio, a researcher from the University of Queensland in Australia, claims that if these marks indeed are from sea turtles, they would be “potentially the most numerous in the world.”

Nevertheless, he has yet to visit the site or view high-resolution images and doubts the prints belong to sea turtles. “The surface patterns do not exhibit the spacing, rhythm, or anatomy expected in a sea turtle’s flipper stroke,” he comments. “I suspect they are abiotic formations rather than biological in origin.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Newly Identified Freshwater Turtle Species Thrived During Dinosaur Extinction

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Paleontologists have introduced a new genus and species of stem cell turtles, based on complete fossil shells discovered in the early Ale Holocene Denver Formation in Colorado.

Reconstruction of Tavachelydra stevensoni in a water environment with logs. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin.

Tavachelydra stevensoni existed in present-day US during the late Ale Holocene, approximately 66-65 million years ago, shortly after the mass extinction event.

The species is part of the Chelydridae family of freshwater turtles, which includes at least seven extinct species and two extant genera.

“The clade of extant Chelydrid turtles (Chelydridae) comprises five species native to the New World,” stated Dr. Tyler Lyson from the Denver Museum of Natural Sciences and his team.

“Though not a varied clade, Chelydrid turtles are commonly found in most North American freshwater ecosystems.”

“The broader group of Chelydrids (i.e., Pan-Chelydridae) is present throughout Laurasia, but their fossil records are notoriously fragmented.”

Fossilized shells and two skulls of Tavachelydra stevensoni were found in the Corral Bluffs survey area in El Paso County, southern Colorado, east of Colorado Springs.

“The straight shell measures nearly 50 cm in length, making Tavachelydra stevensoni one of the larger turtles from the early Ale (Puercan) of the Denver Basin,” remarked the paleontologist.

“Interestingly, two Pan-Chelydrid turtles coexisted during the early Middle Age of this formation: Tavachelydra stevensoni and Denverus middletonii.

“The size difference is significant, with Tavachelydra stevensoni being at least four times larger than Denverus middletonii, which may have reduced competition between the two species in overlapping geographical ranges.”

Although little is known about the paleoenvironment of the single known specimen of Denverus middletonii, the yellow sandstone of fine to medium grain was initially interpreted as channel fill.

In contrast, the two specimens of Tavachelydra stevensoni suggest that they were likely found in ponded waters or sediments, indicating they lived in sediment-rich areas such as overbank deposits.

“While little can be said about the diet of Denverus middletonii due to the lack of skull preservation, the skulls of Tavachelydra stevensoni show large, wide, flat surfaces, likely used to consume hard-shelled organisms such as corals, shelled mollusks, and crabs,” noted the researchers.

“Thus, it seems plausible that Denverus middletonii and Tavachelydra stevensoni occupied distinct ecological niches, with Tavachelydra stevensoni preferring a pond habitat and a durophagous diet.”

“Remarkably, turtle species with a durophagous diet have shown higher survival rates during mass extinction events compared to those with softer diets.”

In addition to the presumed dietary habits of Tavachelydra stevensoni, other common reptiles from the same sedimentary formation include the button-toothed crocodile Cf. Wangonacosuchus and Baenid turtles such as Paratabena nerrellum, Succersies gilberti, and Cedrobaena putrius.

“This indicates that durophagy was a significant life history trait for the earliest Ale-Holocene freshwater vertebrates in North America.”

The discovery of Tavachelydra stevensoni is detailed in a paper published in the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology.

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TR Lyson et al. 2025. New pan-chlydrid turtle, Tavachelydra stevensoni gen. et sp. from the Coral Bluffs area, Lower Aleapione (early Danian, Puercan), Denver Basin, Colorado. Swiss J Palaeontol 144, 46; doi:10.1186/s13358-025-00375-4

Source: www.sci.news

This Adorable Footage Captures a Baby Turtle Responding to Its Mother’s Call

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Emerging from the darkness, slimy nails break through the murky barrier, reaching towards the light. Thunder rumbles as the ground cracks.

This is not a scene from a horror film featuring the undead rising from their graves. Rather, it showcases one of nature’s most endearing spectacles, Parent-child relationship: a forthcoming BBC series exploring the struggles of nurturing the next generation of wildlife, specifically the hatching of the magnificent Amazon River Turtle in Guapoi, South Brazil.

https://c02.purpledshub.com/uploads/sites/41/2025/07/Parenthood-turtle-hatchlings.mp4
Giant Amazon River turtles featured in the new BBC series Parent-child relationship

According to Sir David Attenborough’s narration, the tiny turtles await the perfect conditions to break free. When rain falls, it softens the sand enough for them to dig their way out. If there’s insufficient rain, the layer of sand above becomes too baked in the sun. They are numerous, making their survival seem effortless.

“There’s always that anxiety. You never know how it will turn out,” says series producer Elizabeth Orcham to BBC Science Focus. “As we sit with the crew, we hope everything works. The moment it rains or doesn’t rain, the tension rises. Is it too much rain?”

The rain arrived early during the filming, but the turtles managed to emerge just in time. “Seeing most of the turtles succeed and not lose too many is really comforting. It’s just wonderful.”

Despite the challenges posed by the weather, two million turtles hatched successfully, overcoming what seemed like insurmountable odds.

“Sometimes, it’s a wonder how they survive. It’s fascinating to see just how clumsy they can be,” she notes.

This clumsiness, however, is part of a finely tuned process. Scientists have been investigating communication among these turtles for over a decade. A 2014 study found that mothers likely communicate with their hatchlings to guide them into the water. According to Oakham, this is the only turtle species known to exhibit parental care post-hatching.

The female giant Amazon River turtle (Podocnemis Exagna), also known as the Arrau turtle, grows to a remarkable 76cm (30 inches) in shell length and weighs up to 91kg (200 pounds), while the male measures at 48cm (19 inches). The hatchlings are merely 5cm (2 inches) long. – Photo credit: Getty

The team even managed to capture charming moments featuring the hatchlings helping each other dig out.

“We were thrilled to showcase this new research on turtle communication,” Oakham explains. The filmmakers even accessed the nest to record the hatchlings’ emergence.

Childcare challenges

Climate change poses the greatest threat to the otherwise stable lifecycle of the giant Amazon River turtle.

“Warmer air due to climate change retains more moisture, leading to two outcomes,” she elaborates. “Firstly, it makes the environment drier, but when it finally rains, the moisture simply drips off.”

Severe floods that once occurred every 20 years have now happened twice in the last five years, jeopardizing the hatching process during critical seasons.

Before hatching, the turtles must absorb some of their yolk sac. If they haven’t done so before floods arrive, they will not survive. Thus, when mother turtles lay eggs, they risk a significant gamble regarding the weather – a gamble that is increasingly hard to predict.

They typically lay their eggs two to three months before the rainy season, allowing the sand to solidify and form a protective layer. At this time, the mothers leave the river for the sandbanks, coinciding with the largest congregation of freshwater turtles on the planet, and one of the few instances the species ventures onto land.

“Water can be life-sustaining but also perilous,” Oakham states. “With climate change, this duality has become even more pronounced, making the environment more unpredictable for these parents. Navigating this uncertainty while caring for their young is a delicate balance.”

This episode is the fourth in a five-part series on parental life in freshwater habitats, Parent-child relationship. All five episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer from August 3, 2025.

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About our experts

Elizabeth Orcum is a producer and director with a deep commitment to environmental storytelling and natural history. She is widely recognized for her work on the fifth episode of Green Planet, titled “The Human World,” which delivers a compelling narrative on the interconnectedness of plants and humans. She is now eager to share the stories of animal parents worldwide through the BBC series Parent-child relationship.

Source: www.sciencefocus.com

The Endangered Galapagos Turtle Welcomes 100 Hatchlings as First-Time Mother

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Congratulations, mommy, Galapagos turtle, and longtime resident of the Philadelphia Zoo, recently became their first mother at an estimated age of 100.

Mom, People who have lived in the zoo since 1932layed 16 eggs in November. Four of them have been hatched. It was the first successful hatching of her species at the zoo, which opened in 1874.

Of course, she had helped. Abrazo, male turtle, is estimated to be about a century ago.

Mama and Abrazo, members of the West Santa Cruz subspecies, are the oldest animals at the Philadelphia Zoo. But Galapagos turtles can live up to 200 years longer, the zoo said.

The first hatching was released on February 27th, and the zoo announced it on Thursday. The others continued within a few days, with the last one being hatched on March 6th.

Neither of the hatching has been named, but is expected to be in the public eye from April 23rd, the zoo said. According to Lauren Augustine, director of herpetology at the zoo, they do “fantasy.” (Herpetology refers to the study of reptiles and amphibians.)

“They’re the size of tennis balls and they’re actually pretty good,” Augustine said.

The turtles in the West Santa Cruz Galapagos are International Union for Conservation of Nature. According to the Philadelphia Zoo, before the new arrival, there were only 44 giant turtles in West Santa Cruz at every zoo in the United States.

Baby turtles will not share the same physical space as their parents. Their impressive size – Abrazo is 410 pounds, and Mama is about 280 pounds – poses the risk of crushing the hatch ring.

Unlike his peers, Abrazo is not his first parent. In 2011 he was part of a successful pairing; Unexpected discoveries of five hatching His previous home is Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens in Columbia, South Carolina

Abrazo came to the Philadelphia Zoo on the recommendation of the Zoo and Aquarium Association.

Abrazzo and Mommy were introduced in 2022, and Mama began laying eggs in 2023. She has now laid four rounds of eggs. The first three rounds were not feasible. But the fourth was.

Once she laid eggs, members of the zoo staff were set up to weigh, measure, and artificially incubate at two different temperatures.

All four hatch rings born this year are women, but Augustine said three more eggs are still being raised.

“It’s kind of testimony through the excellent care that she has to take at the institution,” said Stephen Diver, a professor of zoology medicine at the University of Georgia. “It’s not easy to keep a huge tropical turtle in the Northern Hemisphere properly.”

Being hatched will be taken prisoner for at least five years. The zoo then decides what to do with them, Consultation with the Zoo and Aquarium Association. If they were genetic matches for other turtles, they could either end up at another zoo or spend their days in the wild in the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. But that would take a risk, said Rachel Metz, vice president of animal welfare at the Philadelphia Zoo.

“They are at extreme risk from natural disasters, potentially diseases, climate change and invasive species,” she said.

Centuries ago, the Galapagos turtle population reached hundreds of thousands, but it fell over time as it was hunted for human consumption. However, in half a century, the population recovered. Up to about 17,000 For conservation and breeding programs.

Although estimates of the population of turtles in West Santa Cruz vary widely, Stephen Blake, an assistant professor of biology at St. Louis University who has worked extensively with turtles in the Galapagos, says it is likely to be thousands. The population appears to be growing steadily, he said.

The population is small and prisoner reproduction is very rare, so hatching would give researchers the opportunity to study turtles from young ages in captivity, said Juan Manuel Vazquez, a biologist who studied aging in long-standing living animals. Includes Galapagos turtles.

“Additional turtles count,” he said.

Dr. Blake said it is not uncommon for Galapagos turtles to breed in 100 in the wild. Given that, hatching the Philadelphia Zoo is unlikely to have a major impact on conservation efforts, but it could help raise awareness about the massive turtles in general.

“In my opinion, this is not intended to do much for what is happening in the wild directly, reproducing a turtle. But indirect terms, zoos can promote the wonder of producing 100-year-old reptiles for the first time, and use it as a means to surprise them among people.. ”

Source: www.nytimes.com

Fossil of giant freshwater turtle discovered in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil

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Pertocephalus maturin Its shell length probably reaches about 1.8 meters (5.9 ft), making it one of the largest freshwater turtles ever discovered. The discovery marks the latest known occurrence of giant freshwater turtles and suggests coexistence with early humans in the Amazon.

rebuilding the life of Pertocephalus maturin. Image credit: Júlia d’Oliveira.

The newly discovered turtle species lived in what is now Brazil during the late Pleistocene, between 40,000 and 9,000 years ago.

named Pertocephalus maturinthe ancient animal may have reached a carapace length of about 1.8 meters.

Dr. Gabriel Ferreira, a paleontologist at the Senckenberg Center, said: “Freshwater turtles, in contrast to their terrestrial and marine relatives, rarely have such gigantic morphologies and are the only known species to date. “This is very surprising since the youngest giant fossils come from Miocene deposits.” Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen.

“The carapace is up to 1.4 meters (4.6 feet) long; Asian narrow soft-shelled turtle (chitra chitra) The length is approximately 1.1 m (3.6 ft). South American river turtle (Podocnemis Expansa) They are some of the largest freshwater turtles alive today. ”

“In the past, only a few freshwater turtles with carapace lengths exceeding 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) were known,” he added.

“Such megafauna are most recently known, mainly from the Miocene period, about 23 million to 5 million years ago.”

huge partial lower jaw Pertocephalus maturin It comes from the Rio Madeira layer.

This specimen was collected by gold miners at a site known as the Taclas Quarry in Porto Velho in the Brazilian Amazon.

Morphological and phylogenetic analyzes of this fossil revealed close kinship with modern Amazonian species and suggested an omnivorous diet.

“Pertocephalus maturin “This is the youngest known giant freshwater turtle and suggests coexistence between this ancient species and early human residents of the Amazon region,” the paleontologists said.

“People settled in the Amazon region about 12,600 years ago. We also know that large turtles have been a food source for humans since the Paleolithic period.”

“Freshwater turtles are much more difficult to catch because of their agility, but we wonder if early humans also ate them.” Pertocephalus maturin It is not yet clear whether they fell victim to human expansion along with South American megafauna. ”

“Here we need further data from late Pleistocene and early Holocene deposits in the Amazon basin,” Dr. Ferreira said.

discovery of Pertocephalus maturin is reported in paper in a diary biology letters.

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GS Ferreira other. 2024.Latest freshwater giants: new Peltocephalus (Pleurodira: Podocnemididae) A late Pleistocene turtle of the Brazilian Amazon. Biol.Let 20(3):20240010; doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0010

Source: www.sci.news