Glarichelys
Glarichelys is an extinct genus of sea turtle which was originally considered to be from the middle Oligocene epoch but has more recently come to be considered from the Eocene epoch. It was first named by Zangerl in 1958.

Allie_Caulfield · 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
- CheloniiniPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Cryptodira
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Cryptodira
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Chelonioidea
Time the record covers
At least 14 million years on record.
The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 33.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 27.3 Mya.
5 occurrences of Glarichelys on record. 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
5 occurrencesThese 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
4 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Glarichelys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
274 taxa- Oliganodon budensis2 sites
- ? Calamoideae indet.1 site
- Abadzekhia1 site
- Abadzekhia tarletskovi1 site
- Achilleodinium1 site
- Achomosphaera1 site
- Actinodaphne1 site
- Aeoliscus1 site
- Aeoliscus heinrichi1 site
- Anenchelum angustum1 site
- Anenchelum glarisianum1 site
- Apteodinium1 site
- Apterodon rauenbergensis1 site
- Araneae1 site
- Archaeus glarisianus1 site
- Arcopagia1 site
- Arecaceae1 site
- Areoligera1 site
- Auchenorrhyncha1 site
- Aulostomidae1 site
- Aulostomus1 site
- Auxides cernegurae1 site
- Bathysiphon1 site
- Batiacasphaera1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Glarichelys, 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
5 references- Emergency excavation in the Grube Unterfeld (Frauenweiler) clay pit (Oligocene, Rupelian: Baden-Wurttemberg, S. Germany): New records and palaeoenvironmental information1
- Über Reptilienreste aus dem Alttertiär des nördlichen Alpenvorlandes bei Siegsdorf/Oberbayern1
- Fossil Chelonians of Poland1
- Eocene Turtles from Denmark1
- Synopsis Reptilium. Part I. Cataphracta. Tortoises, Crocodiles, Enaliosauria1
Each of the 5 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Glarichelys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Allie_Caulfield
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Glarichelys 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Glarichelys”
- 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 itCheloniini through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Zangerl 1958