{"id":22861,"date":"2026-06-10T12:11:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/fossil-discovery-in-patagonia-reveals-new-species-of-horned-turtle-sci-news\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T12:11:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:11:46","slug":"fossil-discovery-in-patagonia-reveals-new-species-of-horned-turtle-sci-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/fossil-discovery-in-patagonia-reveals-new-species-of-horned-turtle-sci-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Fossil Discovery in Patagonia Reveals New Species of Horned Turtle – Sci.News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paleontologists have identified a new species of meiolaniform turtle from northern Patagonia, Argentina, that lived during the Maastrichtian age, just before the asteroid-triggered mass extinction that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs.<\/strong>
An artist\u2019s impression of Patagoniaemys aeschyli<\/em>. Image credit: Nawel Vazquez \/ Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales \u2018Bernardino Rivadavia\u2019 \/ CONICET.
The newly-identified turtle species lived in what is now Patagonia during the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous epoch, between 72 and 67 million years ago.
Named Patagoniaemys aeschyli<\/em>, it belonged to a lineage that included some of the most unusual turtles ever known.
Meiolaniformes<\/a> are famous for heavily armored bodies and, in some species, horned skulls.
\u201cMeiolaniformes represent a group of turtles that includes the well-known horned species Niolamia argentina<\/em> (Patagonia) and Meiolania platyceps<\/em> (Australia),\u201d said lead author Dr. Federico Agnolin, a paleontologist at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales \u2018Bernardino Rivadavia,\u2019 the Universidad Maim\u00f3nides and CONICET, and his colleagues.
\u201cUncontroversial meiolaniforms are known from Early Cretaceous to Pleistocene times in southern landmasses, including South America, Australia, and New Caledonia.\u201d
The fossilized remains of Patagoniaemys aeschyli<\/em> were unearthed from the Los Alamitos Formation in Argentina\u2019s R\u00edo Negro province.
The specimen includes portions of the skull base, shell fragments, vertebrae, and limb bones, making it one of the more informative meiolaniforms from the region.
The paleontologists estimated that the Patagoniaemys aeschyli<\/em>\u2019s shell measured about 80 cm (2.6 feet) in length.
The shell was broad and relatively low, unlike the more strongly domed shells seen in some later relatives.
\u201cThe shell is relatively thick at the base of the peripheral plates, where it shows a series of robust thick bumps, especially in the posterior parts of marginal,\u201d the researchers said.
\u201cThe external surface of the shell ornamentation is composed of small pits and grooves.\u201d
Beyond identifying a new species, the scientists explored how turtles fared during the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event that occurred 66 million years ago.
By examining fossil diversity in Patagonia, they found evidence that several turtle lineages persisted across the boundary separating the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods.
\u201cThe discovery of Patagoniaemys aeschyli<\/em> confirms the presence of at least two meiolaniform lineages in the latest Cretaceous of southern South America,\u201d the scientists concluded.
\u201cThe marked taxonomic continuity between Maastrichtian and Danian assemblages suggests that the end-Cretaceous extinction event did not severely impact Patagonian turtles, supporting a scenario of lineage persistence and limited faunal turnover among southern chelonians.\u201d
A paper<\/a> describing the discovery was published on March 26, 2026 in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica<\/em>.
_____<\/span>
Federico L. Agnolin et al<\/em>. 2026. A new meiolaniform turtle from the Maastrichtian of Northern Patagonia, Argentina. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica<\/em> 71 (1): 173-184; doi: 10.4202\/app.01268.2025<\/span><\/p>\n

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Paleontologists have identified a new species of meiolaniform turtle from northern Patagonia, Argentina, that lived during the Maastrichtian age, just before the asteroid-triggered mass extinction that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs.An artist\u2019s impression of Patagoniaemys aeschyli. Image credit: Nawel Vazquez \/ Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales \u2018Bernardino Rivadavia\u2019 \/ CONICET.The newly-identified turtle species lived in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}