Chelidae

Chelidae is one of three living families of the turtle suborder Pleurodira, and are commonly called Austro-South American side-neck turtles. The family is distributed in Australia, New Guinea, Eastern Indonesia, and throughout most of South America. It is a large family of turtles with a significant fossil history dating back to the Cretaceous. The family is entirely Gondwanan in origin, with no members found outside Gondwana, either in the present day or as a fossil.

Chelidae

Uncredited · 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
PleurodiraPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB
Life habit
amphibious, solitaryPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
freshwaterPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 113 million years on record.

The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 8 of 344 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 135 of 344 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 39 of 344 occurrencesEocene — about 29 of 344 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 7 of 344 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 65 of 344 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 16 of 344 occurrencesPleistocene — about 37 of 344 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences120–116 Mya — about 2 occurrences116–111 Mya — about 3 occurrences111–107 Mya — about 3 occurrences107–103 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–95 Mya — about 5 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 3 occurrences91–87 Mya — about 5 occurrences87–83 Mya — about 5 occurrences83–78 Mya — about 6 occurrences78–74 Mya — about 6 occurrences74–70 Mya — about 36 occurrences70–66 Mya — about 67 occurrences66–62 Mya — about 36 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 3 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 1 occurrence54–50 Mya — about 1 occurrence50–45 Mya — about 8 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 12 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 5 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 2 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 1 occurrence29–25 Mya — about 4 occurrences25–21 Mya — about 3 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 8 occurrences17–12 Mya — about 15 occurrences12–8.3 Mya — about 20 occurrences8.3–4.1 Mya — about 29 occurrences4.1–0 Mya — about 53 occurrences113.2 Mya11.7 ka124 Mya0 Mya

344 occurrences of Chelidae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

344 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

77 formations

La Colonia — 43.01°S, 67.62°WLa Colonia — 42.71°S, 67.47°WLa Colonia — 42.96°S, 67.55°WLa Colonia — 42.93°S, 67.54°WLa Colonia — 43.12°S, 67.70°WSalamanca — 45.50°S, 67.18°WSalamanca — 45.27°S, 66.97°WSalamanca — 45.25°S, 67.11°WSalamanca — 45.25°S, 67.07°WSolimões — 10.13°S, 67.81°WSolimões — 9.05°S, 68.77°WSolimões — 8.42°S, 70.51°WSolimões — 8.79°S, 67.47°WSolimões — 10.98°S, 69.71°WSolimões — 10.94°S, 69.52°WSolimões — 10.94°S, 69.31°WSolimões — 9.13°S, 72.70°WSolimões — 9.20°S, 72.72°WSolimões — 8.82°S, 72.82°WSolimões — 9.02°S, 72.72°WSolimões — 8.82°S, 67.58°WSolimões — 10.98°S, 68.73°WSolimões — 9.13°S, 68.68°WSolimões — 8.87°S, 67.78°WSolimões — 7.85°S, 72.67°WSarmiento — 45.31°S, 67.74°WSarmiento — 45.40°S, 67.75°WSarmiento — 45.40°S, 67.62°WSarmiento — 45.39°S, 67.74°WAllen — 40.73°S, 67.17°WAllen — 40.06°S, 66.80°WAllen — 38.76°S, 67.98°WAllen — 39.47°S, 67.33°WAllen — 38.99°S, 67.65°WAllen — 39.51°S, 67.38°WLoncoche — 36.78°S, 69.88°WLoncoche — 36.20°S, 69.50°WLoncoche — 36.50°S, 69.83°WAnacleto — 39.12°S, 67.67°WAnacleto — 37.39°S, 69.14°WAnacleto — 37.51°S, 68.94°WAnacleto — 39.38°S, 67.69°WHuayquerías — 33.93°S, 68.47°WHuayquerías — 33.91°S, 68.56°WHuayquerías — 33.96°S, 68.44°WHuayquerías — 33.98°S, 68.46°WGriman Creek — 29.44°S, 147.76°EGriman Creek — 29.43°S, 147.98°EGriman Creek — 29.45°S, 147.76°EGriman Creek — 29.46°S, 147.96°ECastilletes — 11.95°N, 71.27°WCastilletes — 11.95°N, 71.32°WCastilletes — 11.85°N, 71.37°WEntre Rios — 33.72°S, 59.25°WChorrillo — 50.51°S, 72.56°WChorrillo — 50.49°S, 72.55°WPampean — 34.64°S, 59.98°WCerro Fortaleza — 49.58°S, 71.18°WCerro Fortaleza — 49.95°S, 72.05°WMata Amarilla — 49.76°S, 71.09°WMata Amarilla — 49.62°S, 71.13°WMata Amarilla — 49.58°S, 69.57°WMata Amarilla — 49.74°S, 71.09°WLos Alamitos — 41.95°S, 66.33°WNamba — 31.23°S, 140.23°ENamba — 30.14°S, 140.11°EItuzaingo — 31.48°S, 60.23°WItuzaingo — 31.63°S, 60.33°WSolimoes — 10.12°S, 66.88°WSolimoes — 10.94°S, 69.34°WPlottier — 37.06°S, 69.38°WPlottier — 39.30°S, 68.41°WPortezuelo — 38.90°S, 69.55°WPortezuelo — 38.45°S, 68.79°WPebas — 7.36°S, 74.96°WPebas — 3.74°S, 73.25°WPebas — 4.01°S, 73.15°WRedbank Plains — 27.65°S, 152.87°ERedbank Plains — 27.65°S, 152.87°ECamfield Beds — 17.12°S, 131.52°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Chelidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 53 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 38 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Chelidae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Chelidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

1,162 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 269 sites for Chelidae, and this reads 240 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

121 references

Each of the 344 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. 109 further references are not listed. 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 Chelidae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itPleurodira through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gray 1825)