Chelonoidis cubensis
Chelonoidis cubensis, also known as the Cuban giant tortoise, is an extinct species of land tortoise that lived in Cuba from the Late Pleistocene to the Early Holocene. It had a carapace length of between 40 cm and 90 cm. It is thought that the species went extinct through human exploitation.
No picture of Chelonoidis cubensis was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Chelonoidis cubensis, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- ChelonoidisPBDB
- Diet
- herbivore, herbivorePBDB, for Testudinidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Testudinidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Testudinidae
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
5 occurrences of Chelonoidis cubensis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
5 occurrences- Pleistocene98%
- Holocene2%
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.
Chelonoidis cubensis and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Chelonoidis cubensis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
17 taxa- Crocodylus rhombifer2 sites
- Acratocnus1 site
- Acratocnus antillensis1 site
- Aquila1 site
- Boromys torrei1 site
- Canis1 site
- Capromys1 site
- Capromys latus1 site
- Crocodylia1 site
- Cubacyon transversidens1 site
- Geocapromys columbianus1 site
- Neocnus gliriformis1 site
- Nesophontes1 site
- Ornimegalonyx oteroi1 site
- Parocnus browni1 site
- Testudinidae1 site
- Tyto noeli1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Chelonoidis cubensis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
4 references- Testudo cubensis and the evolution of western hemisphere tortoises2
- The fossil avifauna of the tar seeps Las Breas de San Felipe, Matanzas, Cuba1
- Nueva especie de ave fósil (Strigiformes: Tytonidae) del Pleistoceno superior de Cuba1
- Notice of some vertebrate remains from the West Indian Islands1
Each of the 5 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 content0
No picture of Chelonoidis cubensis was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.
Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.
GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Chelonoidis cubensis, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
No 3D scan of Chelonoidis cubensis 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 itChelonoidis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Leidy 1868)