Eorhynchochelys: beaked & shell-less basal turtle

[ZoPteryx]

Eorhynchochelys sinensis

"China's Dawn Beak Turtle"

From the Late Triassic, the earliest known turtle with a toothless beak that still lacked a shell, similar to the toothed Pappochelys.  The study also finds turtle to be sister to the rest of [archosaurs + lepidosaurs] clade, but not especially close to sauropterygians, while still being diapsids of course.  At 2.5 meters long, it was also pretty big for a stem turtle!

https://phys.org/news/2018-08-fossil-turtle-didnt-shell-toothless.html

Pay-walled paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0419-1

[Halichoeres]

Really cool. Maybe we'll get a figure from PNSO!

[Newt]

Look at those broad ribs - it was doing something out of the ordinary with them, whether protective or structural. Just on the cusp of shelling up! It's hard to tell exactly what's going on with the scapulae, but it seems the classic turtleish trick of getting the pectoral girdle inside the ribcage had not yet been accomplished.


Too cool. Also, 2.5 m! Even if most of it is tail, it's still in Macrochelys territory size-wise. What a beast!


Oh, how I adore the Triassic.