A new pancryptodiran turtle from the Late Jurassic of Poland and palaeobiology of early marine turtles

Abstract

Although Western Europe has yielded numerous Jurassic turtle taxa, several represented by cranial material or complete skeletons, the fossil record of the Jurassic turtles remains scarce to the north and east from Germany. Although some Late Jurassic testudinates were historically described from Poland, they were, thus far, represented by fragmentary remains that never were properly figured or described in detail. Therefore, very little is known about the mid‐Mesozoic diversity of turtles in that region of the continent. A new pancryptodiran turtle genus and species, Owadowia borsukbialynickae, is described from the uppermost Jurassic (Tithonian, ca. 148 Ma) carbonate sediments of the Kcynia Formation in Owadów‐Brzezinki Quarry, near Tomaszów Mazowiecki in central Poland. The lower jaw morphology and palaeoecological setting inhabited by the new genus and species, together with the trophic relationships of the Jurassic pancryptodiran turtles, are discussed in an attempt to determine the potential range of mode of life of O. borsukbialynickae. We propose that the new specimen belongs to a new durophagous pancryptodiran turtle taxon. O. borsukbialynickae might have spent considerable time in the marine environment and specialized on eating hard‐shelled invertebrates like bivalves and decapod crustaceans, common to that setting.