Half-Shelled Prehistoric Reptile Was Early Ancestor of Turtles

Researchers have found a new species of reptile which they say is an ancestor of modern turtles. The 240 million-year-old fossils were found in sediments of a Triassic freshwater lake in southern Germany. The species, named Pappochelys (“grandfather turtle”) rosinae, could help settle a long-running debate about how turtles evolved. Grandfather Turtle Pappochelys wouldn’t have looked much like modern turtles at first glance. For one thing, it didn’t have a shell; the ancestors of mo