Seventy-six million years ago, this sleek reptile was well adapted to the environment of what’s now present-day Utah—where the fossil remains of the new species were uncovered.
Back in the Cretaceous Period, when the two-foot-long turtle existed alongside carnivorous tyrannosaurs and others, southern Utah was more akin to what Louisiana is like now: humid and filled with rivers and bayous.
But in addition to the dinosaurs you might see in a Steven Spielberg movie, there were many ancestral reptiles and amphibians as well; not radically different in appearance from those of modern times. Except for the pig-nosed turtle at least.
It’s not similar to any turtle encountered before by the scientific community. Attribute that makes it stand out is its snout. In lieu of the single nasal cavity separated by bands of flesh present in all other known turtles, the newly-discovered reptile has two distinct nasal openings separated by bone.
The researcher who studied the turtle fossil notes, “It’s one of the weirdest turtles that ever lived.”
