Cosmochelys

Cosmochelys is an extinct genus of sea turtle from the Eocene of Africa. It was first named by Andrews in 1919, and contains one species, C. dolloi, named after Louis Dollo. Its type specimen, from near Ameke in Nigeria, is registered in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London, with number NHMUK PV R 4338.

Cosmochelys

Charles William Andrews (1866–1924) · Public Domain · 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
DermochelyiniPBDB
Diet
durophage, piscivorePBDB, for Dermochelyidae
Life habit
aquaticPBDB, for Dermochelyidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Dermochelyidae

Time the record covers

At most 3.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 41.03 Mya and 37.71 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesEocene41–41 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41.53 Mya37.21 Mya

2 occurrences of Cosmochelys on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

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

Kuma — 45.10°N, 34.63°EAmeki — 6.00°N, 7.00°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Cosmochelys and its relatives

Eocene

Where Cosmochelys and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

71 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Cosmochelys, 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

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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Cosmochelys

Credit
Charles William Andrews (1866–1924)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cosmochelys 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 itDermochelyini through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Andrews 1920