Argillochelys
Argillochelys is an extinct genus of sea turtle from the middle to lower Eocene in what is now the island of Great Britain. It was first named by Lydekker in 1889.

FunkMonk · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- PancheloniidaePBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Cryptodira
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Cryptodira
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Cryptodira
Time the record covers
At least 10 million years on record.
The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 37.71 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 33.9 Mya.
17 occurrences of Argillochelys on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
17 occurrences- Eocene100%
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
9 formations
- London Clay Formation6
- Barton Beds Formation2
- Barton Clay Formation2
- Adaev Formation1
- Buchak Formation1
- Tienen Formation1
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The named rock units Argillochelys 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.
Argillochelys and its relatives
EoceneWhere Argillochelys and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
311 taxa- Carcharias macrotus4 sites
- Plantae4 sites
- Teleostei4 sites
- Architectonica (Solariaxis)3 sites
- Asthenotoma zonulata3 sites
- Athleta (Volutospina)3 sites
- Bela3 sites
- Bonellitia evulsa3 sites
- Bullinella3 sites
- Callista3 sites
- Clavilithes3 sites
- Conomitra3 sites
- Corbula3 sites
- Crassatella3 sites
- Cubitostrea plicata3 sites
- Cyclocardia (Arcturellina) sulcata3 sites
- Dentalium3 sites
- Epalxis (Bathytoma) turbida3 sites
- Gari3 sites
- Gemmula3 sites
- Haustator imbricataria3 sites
- Natica labellata3 sites
- Nuculana3 sites
- Nummulites3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Argillochelys, 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
10 references- Faunal Horizons of the Barton Beds in Hampshire4
- A History of British Fossil Reptiles, Part I3
- A new species of Argillochelys (Testudines: Pan-Cheloniidae) from the Bartonianof Kazakhstan2
- Description of the remains of six species of marine turtles (Chelones) from the London Clay of Sheppy and Harwich2
- Paleogene Turtles of Crimea1
- A revision of fossil turtles from the Kiev Clays (Ukraine, Middle Eocene) with comments on the history of the collection of fossil vertebrates of A. S. Rogovich1
- About new findings of turtles in the Eocene of Ukraine1
- A new species of Argillochelys (Testudines: Cryptodira: Cheloniidae) from the Ouled Abdoun phosphate basin, Morocco1
- The fossil vertebrates of Belgium1
- Icones fossilium sectiles1
Each of the 17 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 Argillochelys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- FunkMonk
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Argillochelys was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itPancheloniidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lydekker 1889