Phrynops geoffroanus
Phrynops geoffroanus, also commonly known as Geoffroy's side-necked turtle and Geoffroy's toadhead turtle, is a species of large side-necked turtle in the family Chelidae. The species is endemic to South America.

rodrigo_lazaro · CC BY 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- Also called
- side-necked turtle of GeoffroyPBDB
- Sits inside
- PhrynopsPBDB
- Diet
- piscivorePBDB, for Chelidae
- Life habit
- amphibious, solitaryPBDB, for Chelidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Chelidae
Time the record covers
At most 7.9 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 8 Mya and 129 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Phrynops geoffroanus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
2 occurrences- Miocene45%
- Pliocene32%
- Pleistocene24%
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
2 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Phrynops geoffroanus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Phrynops geoffroanus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Phrynops geoffroanus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
165 taxa- Adinotherium1 site
- Amphiocnus paranense1 site
- Anatochoerus1 site
- Andalgalornis1 site
- Berroia1 site
- Brachytherium cuspidatum1 site
- Brachytherium gradatum1 site
- Briaromys1 site
- Briaromys trouessartianus1 site
- Caiman1 site
- Caiman australis1 site
- Caiman latirostris1 site
- Caiman yacare1 site
- Cantracavia1 site
- Cardiatherium1 site
- Cardiatherium paranense1 site
- Cardiomys1 site
- Carlesia1 site
- Caviodon1 site
- Chasicotatus spinozai1 site
- Cheloniidae1 site
- Chironectes1 site
- Chlamyphractus1 site
- Colossoma1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Phrynops geoffroanus, 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
2 references- Miocene vertebrates from Entre Rios province, eastern Argentina1
- First Fossil Record (Late Miocene) of Phrynops(P. geoffroanus Complex: Chelidae) from Uruguay: Biostratigraphical and Paleoenvironmental Context1
Each of the 2 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 Phrynops geoffroanus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- rodrigo_lazaro
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Phrynops geoffroanus 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 itPhrynops through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schweigger 1812