| Description | Top view of the fossil head of a sea turtle named by Richard Owen FRS (1804-1892) in 1842. Inscribed below in ink: "Chelone pulchriceps. Owen. The above portion of a fossil Head from the Gault of Barnwell, near Cambridge - is now in the Cabinet of the Revd. Thos. Image. - & Represents the natural size. Drawn by T.I. July 1840. No.1 upper part."
The Rev. Thomas Image, Rector of Whepstead, was a fossil collector and Fellow of the Geological Society. His collection was sold to the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge.
This specimen was commented upon by Richard Owen in A history of British fossil reptiles ...(1849), section II chapter 1, p.162
"With the exception of a few more or less mutilated mandibles, no parts of the
skull of a Chelonian reptile have been, hitherto, discovered in the chalk itself, either
at Burham or elsewhere in England ; but Ihave had the opportunity, through the
kindness of the Rev. Thomas Image, M.A., of Whepstead, of examining and comparing
the fossil cranium of a small turtle from the green-sand which underlies the
chalk. The specimen was discovered near Barnwell, in Cambridgeshire. The general
form of the skullis elongate and depressed ; and it is chiefly remarkable for having
the nasal bones marked off by a suture from the pre-frontals being a return
to the typical characters of the vertebrated cranium, which Ihave also noticed in
the skull of a larger turtle, from the Portland Stone, where, however, the course of
the suture is different...."
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