Near the Syrian city of Afrin, an international research team, including researchers from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen, has discovered a previously unknown fossil sea turtle.

The species Syriemys lelunensis, newly named under the aegis of the University of São Paulo, dates from the early Eocene, about 50 million years ago. The find includes a completely preserved interior impression of the shell as well as parts of the ventral carapace, pelvis, and hind legs. The turtle is the first newly described fossil vertebrate species from Syria. The research is published in Papers in Palaeontology.

The oval, well-preserved carapace of the fossil sea turtle is 53 centimeters long and 44 centimeters wide. "For 13 years, the bone fragments from the Eocene period were kept in the office of the General Directorate of Geology and Mineral Resources in Aleppo after they had been recovered in 2010 during a blast in the Al-Zarefeh quarry near the city of Afrin," explains Wafa Adel Alhalabi, a Syrian-Brazilian paleontologist and the study's first author from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. "Together with colleagues from Brazil, Syria, Germany, Lebanon and Canada, we have now scientifically described this animal."