Giant turtles and snakes from a new Paleocene-Eocene site in tropical South America, Socha, Colombia.

A decade ago the scientific community was stunned by the report of the first fossil vertebrates from the Paleocene of northern South America, from the Cerrejón Coal Mine, Colombia; including giant tortoises, crocodiles and the iconic Titanoboa cerrejonensis (the world's largest snake that ever lived).

Even though these were unprecedented finds, many questions and discussions arose, including their validity as surrogates for paleoclimate reconstructions and the extent to which they were geographically distributed.

Recently, new similar and even better preserved fossils have been found in a region almost 500 km south of Cerrejón, in the department of Boyacá, municipality of Socha, in eastern Colombia.

The new Socha fossils shed light on the paleogeographic distribution of Paleocene-Eocene reptiles of northern South America and on their diversity.

Turtles, Snakes, Fossils, Socha, Colombia, Paleocene