pygal

The pygal (rearmost plate of the upper shell) also lacked the notch seen in earlier cheloniids.

At the posterior of the shell is the pygal bone and in front of this nested behind the eighth pleurals is the suprapygal.

The dorsal (back) coat varies from gray to rosy-brown, sometimes with a brown pygal patch around the tail region, where the fur grades to pale gray or grayish brown.

Under the pygal vertebrae and the seventeenth dorsal vertebra there is a series of 20 small vertebrae centra and a flated bone, that together measures 25 centimeters in length.