Wednesday 21 November 2012

Juliana Sterli's visit

Reknowned fossil turtle researcher Juliana Sterli visited Museum Victoria in early November. Juliana works on South American fossil turtles and is based at Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio, Trelew, Provincia de Chubut in Argentina. Juliana wanted to see the Early Cretaceous turtle material as well as the meiolaniid (horned turtle) specimens housed in the Vertebrate Palaeontolgy Collection.
She was very impressed with the size of the horns from a meiolaniid turtle from the Pleistocene of New South Wales.

 Juliana in the Vertebrate Palaeontology lab at Museum Victoria

 Juliana holding the giant fossil turtle horn from New South Wales. The turtle who owned this horn would have been the size of a small car!

During Juliana's visit resident turtlephyle Lesley Kool took her to see the Dinosaur Dreaming site near Inverloch and showed her some of the turtle specimens that have come from that site. Juliana is currently undertaking a review of fossil turtle phylogeny and hopefully some of our turtles will be included in that research.

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