(see Parris et al. 2014): This fossil has a fascinating story. The first half of the bone, the proximal part (ANSP 9234) was discovered before 1849 and was used as the holotype of this species. In 2012, more than 160 years later, Mr. Gregory Harpel, an avocational paleontologist, recovered the distal portion of a right humerus (NJSM GP23363) of a fossil turtle in active point bar deposits of a brook locality in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The immediate reaction from paleontologists at the time was to check it against the type of Atlantochelys mortoni, the expectation being that it would likely give details of the entire humerus of the genus. Remarkably, the new specimen actually fits precisely onto the type of Atlantochelys mortoni. The break between the specimens occurred at mid-shaft and the broken surfaces fit like puzzle pieces. The size and shape of the shaft, even the surface weathering, are identical such that there can be no doubt that these are two pieces of the same bone (Figure 1).

Atlantochelys mortoni was named by Agassiz (1849). Its type specimen is ANSP 9234 & NJSM GP23363, a limb element (right humerus in two halves), and it is a 3D body fossil. Its type locality is Monmouth Brooks (Atlantochelys mortoni type locality), which is in a Campanian/Maastrichtian marine horizon in the Mount Laurel Formation of New Jersey. It is the type species of Atlantochelys.