Hardella thurjii
The brahminy river turtle or crowned river turtle is a species of turtle in the family Geoemydidae. The species is endemic to South Asia.

Thomas Hardwicke · Public Domain · 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
- HardellaPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Cryptodira
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Cryptodira
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Cryptodira
Time the record covers
At least 1.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 774 ka.
5 occurrences of Hardella thurjii on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
5 occurrences- Miocene20%
- Pliocene54%
- Pleistocene26%
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
3 formations
- Pinjor Formation · Siwalik Group2
- Piram Conglomerate Formation1
- Pinjor Formation · Siwalik Group1
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The named rock units Hardella thurjii 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.
Hardella thurjii and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Hardella thurjii and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
50 taxa- Emyda vittata2 sites
- Gavialis browni2 sites
- Gavialis gangeticus2 sites
- Megalochelys sivalensis2 sites
- Palatochelydia2 sites
- Aceratherium perimense1 site
- Aetobatus1 site
- Anancus perimensis1 site
- Batagur1 site
- Batagur baska1 site
- Batagur dhongoka1 site
- Batagur kachuga1 site
- Batagurinae1 site
- Cachuga tectum1 site
- Carcharhinus1 site
- Cetacea1 site
- Chondrichthyes1 site
- Crocodylus1 site
- Delphinidae1 site
- Dorcatherium minus1 site
- Enhydriodon falconeri1 site
- Enhydriodon sivalensis1 site
- Geoclemys1 site
- Geoclemys hamiltonii1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Hardella thurjii, 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
3 references- Fossil turtles and crocodiles from the Caenozoic of S-Asia3
- On a new Emydine Chelonian from the Pliocene of India1
- Indian Tertiary and post-Tertiary Vertebrata. Siwalik and Nerbada Chelonia1
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 Hardella thurjii
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Thomas Hardwicke
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Hardella thurjii · smf:62898
Smithsonian Open Access 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 itHardella through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gray 1831)