A town in Falcón State in Venezuela sitting on the most fossil-rich ground in northern South America. The climate is dry enough that nothing grows over the bones, which is why geologists prospecting for oil kept walking into them. Stupendemys geographicus, a freshwater turtle with a shell over two metres long and the largest that has ever existed, was found here in the 1970s by a Harvard team, and the giant rodent Phoberomys pattersoni came out of the same Miocene beds. The Museo Paleontológico de Urumaco opened in the town in 2000 and holds the material, and there is an archaeology and palaeontology park at La Cruz de Taratara nearby.
Stupendemys, the largest turtle that ever lived · Miocene
This ground is protected. Photograph it, record it, leave it where it lies. On US federal land the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act 2009 makes collecting vertebrate fossils an offence, and penalties are real.
Venezuela
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This is remote ground. The closest other places on the map are a long way off.
