aw, it's so cute...

[acroyear]

Odontochelys, a transitional turtle - The Panda's Thumb:

So, what we have here is a long-legged, toothed reptile with an elongate body, and it also has a plastron like a turtle, and hints in the bony structure of the spine of the carapace-to-be. It also fits perfectly with the embryology: modern turtles form the plastron first, and the carapace second. This is a beautiful transitional form. I’d love to have some swimming in the streams near me. And here’s a reconstruction of what they would have looked like, way back in the Triassic [220 million years ago].

Comments

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

"I’d love to have some swimming in the streams near me."

Unfortunately, they'd never have survived the Victorian fad for turtle soup. Unless they were poisonous?

Aren't they just darling???

[skivee.livejournal.com]

Of course in the painting we don't see that they have the personality of alligator snapping turtles