Pig-snouted turtle from dinosaur era discovered in Utah | Inquirer Technology

Pig-snouted turtle from dinosaur era discovered in Utah

/ 10:07 AM October 22, 2015

Extinct Pig-Snouted Turtle

This undated illustration provided by the University of Utah shows a pig-snouted turtle that lived alongside tyrannosaurs and duck-billed dinosaurs. A team from the Natural History Museum of Utah discovered the fossil of the strange-looking turtle in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, in southern Utah. The University of Utah announced the discovery in a news release Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2015. The findings were published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. AP

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — A strange pig-snouted turtle that lived alongside tyrannosaurs and duck-billed dinosaurs has been discovered in Utah.

The University of Utah announced the finding in a news release Wednesday. A team from the Natural History Museum of Utah discovered fossils of strange-looking turtle in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah.

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Joshua Lively of the University of Texas at Austin called it one of the weirdest turtles that ever lived. He studied the fossils for his master’s thesis.

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The 2-foot-long (about two-thirds of a meter long) turtle lived about 76 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period when southern Utah was a wet, hot climate with rivers and bayous.

Researchers say its pig-like nose with two nostrils makes it unlike any other turtle ever found.

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The findings were published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

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TOPICS: Dinosaur, Discovery, duck-billed dinosaurs, fossils, Research, University of Texas at Austin, University of Utah, Utah
TAGS: Dinosaur, Discovery, duck-billed dinosaurs, fossils, Research, University of Texas at Austin, University of Utah, Utah

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