Juan Vilanova y Piera (1821-1893) y la primera tortuga hallada en el Mesozoico español

Abstract

MNCN 59511 is a natural inner cast of the caparace of a Pancryptodiran turtle from the Lower Cretaceous of Morella (Castellón), whose discovery was attributed to José Royo y Gómez. However, information available at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (Madrid) shows that the fossil was actually collected in the second half of the nineteenth century by Juan Vilanova y Piera, constituting the first known discovery of a turtle in the Spanish Mesozoic