A team of researchers have found what is being described as the world's oldest fossilised turtle as it is believed to be about an astonishing 120 million years old.

The researchers said that the fossil is expected to be 25 million years older than the previously known fossil found. The fossil is almost completely preserved and is form the Cretaceous period, according to the researchers. They also said that the fossilised turtleed more than six and a half feet
long and appeared to look much like modern marine turtles. The previous oldest fossilised turtle was Santanachelysgaffneyi that was found in Brazil in 2008.

Dr Edwin Cadena, a scholar of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation at the Senckenberg Research Institute, said that his team has described a fossil sea turtle from Colombia that is 25 million years older the previous oldest specimen found.Dr Cadena found the oldest fossilised turtle along with his colleague J. Parham of California State University, Fullerton.

Dr Cadena said, “The turtle described by us as Desmatochelyspadillai sp. originates from Cretaceous sediments and is at least 120 million years old.Based on the animals' morphology and the sediments they were found in, we are certain that we are indeed dealing with the oldest known fossil sea turtle”

Experts said that sea turtles evolved from terrestrial and freshwater turtles that lived approximately 230 million years ago. The spices spit between land and sea turtles during the Cretaceous period.