There is a new world’s oldest sea turtle in town and it swam at least 120 million years ago during the Cretaceous period.
The reptile’s official name is Desmatochelys padillai. Amateur paleontologist Mary Luz and her two brothers found the fossilized remains of the turtle near the town of Villa de Leyva in Colombia in 2007.
On Monday, researchers from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, released their analysis of the turtle in the journal PaleoBios.
“Based on the animals’ morphology and the sediments they were found in, we are certain that we are indeed dealing with the oldest known fossil sea turtle,” study author Edwin Cadena said in a statement.
