Acanthochelys

Acanthochelys is a genus of turtles, the spiny swamp turtles, in the family Chelidae, subfamily Chelinae, found in South America. Until recently, the species of this genus were considered to be members of the genus Platemys, but were moved to the resurrected genus originally described by Gray (1873) based on the type species by monotypy Acanthochelys spixii.

Acanthochelys

Claudio Dias Timm · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
ChelidaePBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Chelidae
Life habit
amphibious, solitaryPBDB, for Chelidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Chelidae

Time the record covers

At least 6 million years on record.

The record covers at least 11 Mya to 5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 13.8 Mya to 3 Mya.

Miocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 0 of 2 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.3–4.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.9–4.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.5–4.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.1–3.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.7–3.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.3–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11 Mya5 Mya14.3 Mya2.5 Mya

2 occurrences of Acanthochelys on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

2 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Casa Grande — 31.27°S, 64.45°W

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The named rock units Acanthochelys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Acanthochelys and its relatives

Miocene

Where Acanthochelys and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

43 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Acanthochelys, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Acanthochelys

Credit
Claudio Dias Timm
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Acanthochelys was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.

MorphoSource was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itChelidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1873