9" Fossil Tortoise (Stylemys) From Nebraska - Very Inflated

This is a 9" long specimen of an Oligocene aged tortoise (Stylemys nebrascensis) collected from the White River Formation. It was collected from the Shalimar Ranch near Harrison, Nebraska. Some of the rock has been left in place to create a stone base for the specimen. There are a number of areas where it was repaired to put the pieces back together, but there isn't any significant restoration.

Stylemys ("pillar turtle") is the first fossil genus of dry land tortoise discovered in the United States. The genus lived in temperate to subtropical areas of North America, Europe, and Asia
These extinct tortoises had primitive jaw muscles, unlike today's tortoises, which also display the os transiliens bone, and would have been herbivorous. While Stylemys species did exhibit the same neck structure as modern tortoises, the forelimbs were unsuitable for burrowing.