Testudo
Searched as Testudo antiqua noviciensis. The Paleobiology Database treats Testudo as the accepted name.
Testudo, the Mediterranean tortoises, are a genus of tortoises found in North Africa, Western Asia, and Europe. Several species are under threat in the wild, mainly from habitat destruction.

Uncredited · 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
- TestudininiPBDB
- Diet
- herbivore, herbivorePBDB, for Testudinidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Testudinidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Testudinidae
Time the record covers
At most 4.5 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 20.45 Mya and 15.98 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Testudo 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
1 occurrences- Miocene100%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Testudo has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Testudo and its relatives
MioceneWhere Testudo and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
2,368 taxa- Trionyx43 sites
- Ophisaurus30 sites
- Hipparion26 sites
- Lacerta26 sites
- Aves21 sites
- Gazella19 sites
- Equus18 sites
- Vipera18 sites
- Chiroptera16 sites
- Rana16 sites
- Lacertidae15 sites
- Cervidae14 sites
- Diplocynodon14 sites
- Prolagus14 sites
- Rhinocerotidae14 sites
- Apodemus13 sites
- Gomphotherium angustidens13 sites
- Mustelidae13 sites
- Osteichthyes13 sites
- Prolagus oeningensis13 sites
- Bufo viridis12 sites
- Cervus12 sites
- Colubridae12 sites
- Democricetodon mutilus12 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 321 sites for Testudo, and this reads 240 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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 content3
Picture of Testudo
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it

CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Testudo hermanni hermanni · MVZ:Herp:MVZ:Herp:238087
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Direct Dimensions
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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 itTestudinini through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758