Cyclanorbis
Cyclanorbis is a genus of softshell turtles in the family Trionychidae. The genus is endemic to Africa.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- CyclanorbinaePBDB
- Diet
- piscivore, carnivorePBDB, for Trionychidae
- Life habit
- aquatic, solitaryPBDB, for Trionychidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Trionychidae
- Environment
- brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Trionychidae
Time the record covers
At least 3.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
12 occurrences of Cyclanorbis on record, most of them in the Pliocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
12 occurrences- Miocene22%
- Pliocene37%
- Pleistocene25%
- Holocene17%
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
6 formations
- Chiwondo Formation2
- Oluka Formation · Albertine Group1
- Nyakabingo Formation · Albertine Group1
- Nkondo Formation · Albertine Group1
- Kanapoi Formation1
- Nyaburogo Formation · Albertine Group1
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The named rock units Cyclanorbis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Cyclanorbis and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Cyclanorbis and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
75 taxa- Pelusios sinuatus3 sites
- Crocodylus2 sites
- Hipparion2 sites
- Lates niloticus2 sites
- Pelomedusa subrufa2 sites
- Pelusios castaneus2 sites
- Aepycerotini1 site
- Alcelaphini1 site
- Anancus kenyensis1 site
- Anatidae1 site
- Anhinga1 site
- Antilopini1 site
- Aspatharia1 site
- Bagridae1 site
- Bellamya1 site
- Bovidae1 site
- Bovini1 site
- Bulinus1 site
- Caelatura1 site
- Ceratotherium simum1 site
- Cercopithecoides1 site
- Clarias1 site
- Cleopatra1 site
- Colobinae sp.1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Cyclanorbis, 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
8 references- Fossil soft-shelled turtles of the Lake Turkana Basin,Africa3
- Fresh water chelonians from the western rift, Uganda2
- Cheloniens2
- Human consumption of turtles of the Homo rudolfensis site Uraha (Malawi, East Africa)1
- Early Pliocene Tetrapod Remains from Kanapoi, Lake Turkana Basin, Kenya1
- Paleobiogeography of the Malawi Rift: Age and vertebrate paleontology of the Chiwondo Beds, northern Malawi1
- Palaeovegetation (fossil plants) of the Albertine rift valley1
- Ostracods from Nkondo Formation,upper Miocene,lake Albert Basin,Uganda1
Each of the 12 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 content2
Picture of Cyclanorbis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Cyclanorbis senegalensis · pchp:2627
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Cyclanorbis”
- 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 itCyclanorbinae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1854