World-oldest find of the Rafetus turtle

Sample with the skull prepared for CT

Softshell turtles have been known from NW Bohemia for more than 100 years, however, their taxonomy was as yet a mystery. Milan Chroust with his colleagues published a new study, in which fossil material from Břešťany could be attributed, owing to modern computed tomography, to Rafetus bohemicus species. Also, new important morphological details could be identified. This is the oldest fossil record of this genus in the world. The paper has been published in PeerJ journal.