Palaeomedusa

Palaeomedusa testa is an extinct species of thalassochelydian turtle from the Tithonian of the Late Jurassic. It was first described by the German palaeontologist Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer in 1860. It is the only species classified under the genus Palaeomedusa.

Palaeomedusa

FunkMonk · 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
EurysternidaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida

Time the record covers

At most 9.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 152.21 Mya and 143.1 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Jurassic — about 3 of 3 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 3 occurrences152–152 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences152–152 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences152–151 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences151–151 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences151–150 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences150–150 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences150–150 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences150–149 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences145–144 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences152.7 Mya142.6 Mya

3 occurrences of Palaeomedusa on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

1 formation

Painten — 49.02°N, 11.98°E

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The named rock units Palaeomedusa 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.

Palaeomedusa and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Palaeomedusa and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

43 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Palaeomedusa, 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Palaeomedusa

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

No 3D scan of Palaeomedusa 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 itEurysternidae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Meyer 1860