Meiolaniformes

Meiolaniformes is an extinct clade of stem-group turtles, defined as all taxa more closely related to Meiolania than to Cryptodira and Pleurodira. It is known from the Early Cretaceous to the Holocene of Australia, Oceania and South America. Some Eurasian taxa have been suggested to be part of the group, but this is disputed.

Meiolaniformes

Fanny Schertzer · 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
PerichelydiaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida

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 119.57 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 5 of 108 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 48 of 108 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 22 of 108 occurrencesEocene — about 7 of 108 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 3 of 108 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 4 of 108 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 108 occurrencesPleistocene — about 16 of 108 occurrences122–118 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences118–114 Mya — about 1 occurrence114–110 Mya — about 3 occurrences85–81 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences81–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–73 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences73–69 Mya — about 24 occurrences69–65 Mya — about 29 occurrences65–61 Mya — about 17 occurrences57–53 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences53–49 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences49–45 Mya — about 2 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 3 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 1 occurrence37–33 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–24 Mya — about 2 occurrences24–20 Mya — about 1 occurrence20–16 Mya — about 2 occurrences16–12 Mya — about 2 occurrences12–8.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences8.1–4.1 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences4.1–0 Mya — about 18 occurrences113.2 Mya11.7 ka122 Mya0 Mya

108 occurrences of Meiolaniformes on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

108 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

16 formations

La Colonia — 43.01°S, 67.62°WLa Colonia — 42.94°S, 67.54°WLa Colonia — 42.97°S, 67.53°WLa Colonia — 42.99°S, 67.83°WLa Colonia — 43.16°S, 67.68°WSalamanca — 45.50°S, 67.18°WSalamanca — 45.34°S, 67.37°WSalamanca — 45.35°S, 67.37°WSalamanca — 45.43°S, 67.17°WSalamanca — 45.51°S, 67.26°WSarmiento — 45.40°S, 67.72°WSarmiento — 45.40°S, 67.75°WSarmiento — 44.65°S, 69.17°WEumeralla — 38.78°S, 143.40°EEumeralla — 36.70°S, 143.40°EAllen — 39.72°S, 66.70°WAllen — 40.73°S, 67.17°WAllen — 39.95°S, 66.57°WLos Alamitos — 41.95°S, 66.33°WCerro Barcino — 43.78°S, 68.92°WCerro Barcino — 43.15°S, 68.43°WWyandotte — 18.77°S, 144.85°EWyandotte — 19.67°S, 145.54°EWipajiri — 28.29°S, 138.26°EWipajiri — 27.75°S, 140.73°EBannockburn — 44.91°S, 169.86°ERundle — 23.65°S, 150.98°ELoncoche — 36.33°S, 69.55°WEtadunna — 28.35°S, 138.30°ECarl Creek Limestone — 19.08°S, 138.72°ECamfield Beds — 17.12°S, 131.52°EChorrillo — 50.51°S, 72.56°W

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The named rock units Meiolaniformes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Meiolaniformes and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

268 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 106 sites for Meiolaniformes, 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

30 references

Each of the 108 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. 18 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 Meiolaniformes

Credit
Fanny Schertzer
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Meiolaniformes 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 itPerichelydia through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sterli and de la Fuente 2013