The turtle fossil find in Yakutia, the world’s coldest permanently inhabited region, was made at a site called Teete where dinosaurs were prolific in the same era some 130 million years ago. Russian biologist Biologist Dr Pavel Skuchas, from St Petersburg State University, said: “The fact of the presence of turtles is very interesting. It shows that there was no cold at that time in this area, despite the fact that these are polar regions. These are the most northern finds of non-sea turtles.”

He is studying how turtles coped with the long winter darkness and summer white nights. 

“We are trying to find out what adaptations these animals – turtles, salamanders, dinosaurs and others – had to polar conditions,” he said.

The site is now below the Arctic Circle, but Dr  Skuchas says that millions of years ago it was a polar region, reported The Siberian Times.

He believes the region was considerably warmer than today. 

Geologist and palaeontologist Dr Pavel Kolosov said the Teete site is unique. 

“There are hundreds of known locations with the remains of dinosaurs and other groups of vertebrates around the world,” he said.

“But only a few of them lie in the region of the polar latitudes of the Mesozoic era. 

“Among them, only four locations belong to the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous time.

“Three are in the southern hemisphere and only one in the northern. 

“This one is Teete.”

Among the dinosaurs that lived in this region of polar Siberian alongside turtles were the Stegosaurus, Camarasaurus, Allosauridae and Coelurosauria.

The turtle find was made by scientists hunting for precious metals. 

Source: Read Full Article