Thalassochelydia

Thalassochelydia is a clade of extinct marine turtles from the Late Jurassic and earliest Cretaceous of Europe and South America. The group is defined as including Eurysternum, Plesiochelys and Thalassemys to the exclusion of Pelomedusa, Testudo and Protostega. While a clade uniting the families Eurysternidae, Plesiochelyidae and Thalassemydidae had been supported by phylogenetic evidence, a name was not given for the clade until 2017, when Jérémy Anquetin and colleagues coined Thalassochelydia.

Thalassochelydia

Walter G. Joyce ,Matthias Mäuser,Serjoscha W. Evers · 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
Sits inside
TestudinataPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Diapsida

Time the record covers

At least 144 million years on record.

The record covers at least 161.5 Mya to 16.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 15.98 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 0 of 197 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 197 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 2 of 197 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 170 of 197 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 22 of 197 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 197 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 197 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 197 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 197 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 197 occurrences205–199 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences199–192 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences192–186 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences186–179 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences179–173 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences173–167 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences167–160 Mya — about 2 occurrences160–154 Mya — about 12 occurrences154–147 Mya — about 122 occurrences147–141 Mya — about 39 occurrences141–134 Mya — about 9 occurrences134–128 Mya — about 5 occurrences128–122 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences122–115 Mya — about 3 occurrences115–109 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences109–102 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences102–96 Mya — about 1 occurrence96–89 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences19–12 Mya — about 1 occurrence161.5 Mya16.9 Mya205 Mya12 Mya

197 occurrences of Thalassochelydia 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

197 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

40 formations

Reuchenette — 47.22°N, 7.55°EReuchenette — 47.42°N, 7.07°EReuchenette — 47.42°N, 7.02°EReuchenette — 47.34°N, 7.19°ESolnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°ESolnhofen — 48.90°N, 11.18°EPainten — 48.92°N, 11.58°EPainten — 49.02°N, 11.98°EKimmeridge Clay — 51.55°N, 1.79°WKimmeridge Clay — 50.61°N, 2.45°WKimmeridge Clay — 50.98°N, 2.11°WKimmeridge Clay — 51.67°N, 1.24°WKimmeridge Clay — 50.62°N, 2.12°WVaca Muerta — 39.19°S, 69.67°WVaca Muerta — 38.83°S, 70.20°WVaca Muerta — 38.11°S, 70.50°WVaca Muerta — 39.19°S, 69.64°WVillar del Arzobispo — 40.66°N, 0.88°WTunbridge Wells Sand — 51.09°N, 0.17°WHorizon à Lafauriana — 44.64°N, 1.53°EHorizon à Irius — 44.51°N, 1.33°EHorizon à Irius — 44.55°N, 1.52°ESobral — 39.11°N, 9.39°WSüntel — 52.29°N, 8.71°EMarnes à Deltoideum delta — 49.51°N, 0.07°EMünder Mergel — 51.94°N, 9.67°EAlcobaça — 39.70°N, 8.80°WAlcobaça — 39.55°N, 8.94°WWadhurst Clay — 51.00°N, 0.39°EWadhurst Clay — 50.85°N, 0.57°EMont-Lambert — 50.77°N, 1.63°EPortland Stone — 50.57°N, 2.45°WMörnsheim — 48.86°N, 10.99°EMörnsheim — 48.79°N, 10.90°ETorleite — 49.01°N, 11.83°ETorleite — 50.03°N, 11.12°ESolnhofen Platenkalk — 48.92°N, 11.50°EFreixial — 39.35°N, 9.10°WFreixial — 39.09°N, 9.41°WVuache — 46.83°N, 6.52°EWeald Clay — 50.96°N, 0.12°WEspichel — 39.42°N, 9.22°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Thalassochelydia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 16 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 53 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Thalassochelydia and its relatives

Late Jurassic

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

Found in the same rock

837 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 112 sites for Thalassochelydia, 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

87 references

Each of the 197 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. 75 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 Thalassochelydia

Credit
Walter G. Joyce ,Matthias Mäuser,Serjoscha W. Evers
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Thalassochelydia 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 itTestudinata through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Anquetin et al. 2017