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The suit -- called a carapace -- is about 70% complete and covers each major region of the body.

"Turtle growth rates and sizes vary," says Cómbita-Romero, so the team looked at features like the thickness of its carapace and the spots where its ribs were knitting together into solid bone.

It had stubby limbs and a flattened carapace, suggesting that—unlike modern sea turtles—this ancient reptile lived along shallow coastlines.

Polished, urbane and preternaturally prepared, Cornwell’s sometimes mischievous demeanor forms a kind of shadow narrative, a fascinating carapace that Morris’s interrogatory arrows fail to fully pierce.

The fossil is partial, with a relatively complete carapace - the turtle's shell - but not the rest of the skeleton.