Pacifichelys

Pacifichelys is an extinct genus of sea turtle from the Middle Miocene of Peru and California. It was first named by James F. Parham and Nicholas D. Pyenson in 2010, and the type species is Pacifichelys urbinai from Peru. A second species, P. hutchisoni, was reassigned from the genus Euclastes. It is known from the Miocene of California. Like the living Ridley and loggerhead sea turtles, Pacifichelys was durophagous, consuming hard-shelled organisms with crushing jaws.

Pacifichelys

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
EuclastidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Cryptodira
Life habit
aquaticPBDB, for Cryptodira
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Chelonioidea

Time the record covers

At least 6.5 million years on record.

The record covers at least 13.82 Mya to 7.246 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 3.6 Mya.

Miocene — about 3 of 3 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 3 occurrencesPliocene16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.8–9.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.3–8.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.9–8.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.5–8.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.0–7.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.6–7.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.1–6.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.7–6.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.2–5.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.8–5.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.3–4.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.9–4.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.4–4.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.0–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13.82 Mya7.246 Mya16.5 Mya3.1 Mya

3 occurrences of Pacifichelys on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

3 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

3 formations

Temblor — 35.47°N, 118.91°WPisco — 14.33°S, 75.90°WBlack Rock Sandstone — 37.98°S, 145.05°E

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The named rock units Pacifichelys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Pacifichelys and its relatives

Miocene

Where Pacifichelys and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

77 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Pacifichelys, 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

Each of the 3 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 content1

Picture of Pacifichelys

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pacifichelys was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itEuclastidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Parham and Pyenson 2010