Dermochelys

Uncredited · Public Domain · via Wikidata/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- Also called
- Leatherback sea turtlePBDB
- Sits inside
- DermochelyidaePBDB
- Diet
- durophage, piscivorePBDB, for Dermochelyidae
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Dermochelyidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Dermochelyidae
Time the record covers
At least 7.2 million years on record.
The record covers at least 7.246 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 0 Mya.
5 occurrences of Dermochelys on record. 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
5 occurrences- Miocene20%
- Pleistocene20%
- Holocene60%
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
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The named rock units Dermochelys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
120 taxa- Balaenopteridae2 sites
- Aepyprymnus rufescens1 site
- Aethia1 site
- Albireonidae1 site
- Alligator sinensis1 site
- Antechinus flavipes1 site
- Antechinus stuartii1 site
- Anura1 site
- Artiodactyla1 site
- Atocetus nasalis1 site
- Balaenidae1 site
- Bettongia penicillata1 site
- Bubalus teilhardi1 site
- Bubalus youngi1 site
- Carangidae1 site
- Carcharodon hastalis1 site
- Caretta caretta1 site
- Carphodactylus1 site
- Cepphus1 site
- Cercartetus caudatus1 site
- Cervus1 site
- Chelodina (Chelydera) rugosa1 site
- Chelodina longicollis1 site
- Chelodina novaeguineae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Dermochelys, 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
4 references- Remains of Leatherback turtles, Dermochelys coriacea, at Mid-Late Holocene archaeological sites in coastal Oman: clues of past worlds2
- The first fossil of the extant leatherback sea turtle Dermochelys coriacea1
- Tropical Rainforests of North Queensland: Their Conservation Significance1
- A late Miocene marine vertebrate assemblage from Southern California1
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 content2

Picture of Dermochelys
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDermochelyidae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. de Blainville 1816