Would you have ever guessed that you’d one day witness a fossil of two turtles in the middle of their nature call during mating season?
Back in 1987, researchers stumbled upon an unusual 47-million-year-old fossil in the Messel Fossil Pit, Germany. Turns out, this pair of turtles were in the middle of their mating act in the middle of a lake when they sank a bit too deep—right where the toxic waters were—and died. It was toxic because it was a volcanic late, and the conditions were perfect for things to die and get fossilized there.
Turns out, humanity’s uncovered around 30 fossils of mating animals so far, so mating fossils aren’t such a rarity. But all of those were insects. This one, however, was the first ancient vertebrate, the Allaeochelys crassesculpta, to be fossilized mid-act.