Anomalías en el caparazón de un ejemplar de Neochelys en el XIX Annual Meeting de la EAVP

Otro de los trabajos presentados por los integrantes del Grupo de Biología Evolutiva de la UNED en el recientemente celebrado congreso de la European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists (EAVP) fue el póster titulado "Not all are crocodile bites: shell pitting on a Neochelys turtle from the Eocene of Zamora (Spain)". En este trabajo, se han reevaluado las anomalías presentes en el caparazón de un espécimen determinado como Neochelys sp., de la localidad de Zamora. El resumen es el siguiente:

Shell pitting is one of the most common abnormal condition identified in extinct turtles and, at the same time, one of the less understood. References to shell pitting in extant turtles do not usually include morphological descriptions, illustrations, or data concerning causal agents, etiology or pathogenesis. In the case of the fossil record, available interpretations on shell pitting are generally speculative or poorly justified. In this sense, in the literature regarding extinct turtles, pre-mortem bite marks are the most frequently proposed causative agent to explain shell pitting. As a consequence, other potential causative agents (e.g., parasitism or bacterial and fungal infections) have rarely been contemplated.

The anomalies on the shell of an individual determined as Neochelys sp. (Pleurodira, Podocnemididae) from the middle Eocene (Lutetian) of Corrales del Vino (Zamora, Spain) are discussed in detail. The anomalies of the specimen were interpreted in a previous study as traumatic injuries result from a crocodile attack. The lesions produced by the predator were interpreted as non-fatal for the turtle specimen. The re-study of these anomalies through physical examination and differential diagnosis procedures, allows proposing alternative causal agents. This type of analysis indicates an increase in the complexity in the interpretation of the shell pits in fossil remains of turtles than that which can be generally deduced from the available literature.

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Más información: 

• Referencia: Guerrero, A., Ortega, F., Martín de Jesús, S., Pérez-García, A. 2022. Not all are crocodile bites: shell pitting on a Neochelys turtle from the Eocene of Zamora (Spain). Abstract book of the 19th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists: 85.