Nanhsiungchelyidae

Nanhsiungchelyidae is an extinct family of land turtles known from Cretaceous deposits in Asia and North America. Nanhsiungchelyids were more terrestrial than many of their contemporaries, and may have gone extinct at the end of the Cretaceous as a result.

Nanhsiungchelyidae

Willem van Valkenburg · 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
CryptodiraPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Cryptodira
Life habit
aquaticPBDB, for Cryptodira
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Cryptodira

Time the record covers

At least 41 million years on record.

The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 66 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 4 of 178 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 174 of 178 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 178 occurrences123–121 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences121–119 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences119–117 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences117–115 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences115–113 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences113–111 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences111–109 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences109–107 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences107–105 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences105–103 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences103–101 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences101–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–98 Mya — about 4 occurrences98–96 Mya — about 4 occurrences96–94 Mya — about 4 occurrences94–92 Mya — about 3 occurrences92–90 Mya — about 3 occurrences90–88 Mya — about 2 occurrences88–86 Mya — about 2 occurrences86–84 Mya — about 4 occurrences84–82 Mya — about 11 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 14 occurrences80–78 Mya — about 14 occurrences78–76 Mya — about 14 occurrences76–74 Mya — about 14 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 14 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 18 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 19 occurrences69–67 Mya — about 19 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 8 occurrences113.2 Mya72.2 Mya123 Mya65 Mya

178 occurrences of Nanhsiungchelyidae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

178 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

49 formations

Hell Creek — 45.95°N, 103.96°WHell Creek — 46.33°N, 103.90°WHell Creek — 46.46°N, 104.00°WHell Creek — 46.36°N, 103.90°WHell Creek — 45.94°N, 103.95°WHell Creek — 47.55°N, 107.13°WHell Creek — 47.62°N, 107.32°WHell Creek — 47.57°N, 107.10°WHell Creek — 47.60°N, 106.27°WHell Creek — 47.61°N, 106.90°WHell Creek — 46.03°N, 103.77°WHell Creek — 45.38°N, 105.30°WHell Creek — 46.41°N, 103.50°WHell Creek — 45.89°N, 104.55°WHell Creek — 45.87°N, 103.79°WHell Creek — 45.00°N, 103.19°WKirtland — 36.30°N, 108.55°WKirtland — 36.19°N, 107.89°WKirtland — 36.14°N, 108.11°WKirtland — 36.34°N, 108.08°WKirtland — 36.29°N, 108.54°WLance — 43.12°N, 104.64°WLance — 41.57°N, 108.67°WLance — 43.18°N, 104.53°WLance — 43.15°N, 104.57°WLance — 45.75°N, 101.20°WLance — 43.00°N, 104.50°WLance — 45.39°N, 103.70°WLance — 45.60°N, 103.63°WBaynshire — 44.45°N, 107.38°EBaynshire — 44.27°N, 109.91°EBaynshire — 43.50°N, 107.76°EBaynshire — 43.56°N, 107.91°EBaynshire — 44.18°N, 102.79°EBaynshire — 43.14°N, 107.52°EBaynshire — 43.94°N, 101.33°EDjadokhta — 43.66°N, 100.90°EDjadokhta — 44.15°N, 103.72°EDjadokhta — 44.56°N, 103.08°EDjadokhta — 44.09°N, 102.91°EDjadokhta — 44.07°N, 102.67°EDjadokhta — 44.05°N, 102.82°EDjadokhta — 44.00°N, 104.00°EAguja — 29.20°N, 103.55°WAguja — 29.29°N, 103.61°WFruitland — 36.49°N, 108.49°WFruitland — 36.27°N, 108.21°WFruitland — 36.12°N, 107.78°WFruitland — 36.29°N, 108.55°WFerris — 41.80°N, 107.00°WFerris — 41.94°N, 106.88°WFerris — 41.96°N, 106.89°WDinosaur Park — 49.12°N, 110.47°WDinosaur Park — 50.82°N, 111.57°WDinosaur Park — 50.74°N, 111.46°WKhodzhakul — 40.10°N, 65.80°EKhodzhakul — 40.60°N, 71.83°EKaiparowits — 37.42°N, 111.79°WKaiparowits — 37.49°N, 111.72°WKaiparowits — 37.30°N, 112.43°WKaiparowits — 37.84°N, 111.28°WOldman — 49.10°N, 110.94°WOldman — 49.78°N, 113.32°WOldman — 50.73°N, 111.80°WOldman — 49.23°N, 110.69°WJudith River — 46.47°N, 109.30°WJudith River — 46.40°N, 109.66°WJudith River — 46.35°N, 109.22°WJudith River — 46.44°N, 109.83°WDenver — 39.61°N, 105.02°WDenver — 39.84°N, 105.04°WDenver — 39.90°N, 105.10°WDenver — 38.91°N, 104.53°WBaruungoyot — 43.50°N, 101.13°EBaruungoyot — 42.29°N, 105.74°EBaruungoyot — 43.94°N, 101.33°EFrenchman — 49.04°N, 106.60°WFrenchman — 49.52°N, 108.82°WFrenchman — 49.00°N, 110.55°WJavelina — 29.30°N, 103.50°WJavelina — 29.21°N, 103.61°WTwo Medicine — 48.63°N, 113.75°WTwo Medicine — 48.94°N, 112.64°WMilk River — 49.08°N, 111.44°WAguja — 28.94°N, 103.37°WAguja — 28.98°N, 103.38°WKitadani — 36.12°N, 136.54°EJudith River — 49.10°N, 109.50°WMesaverde — 42.85°N, 107.28°WYuanpu — 25.23°N, 114.58°E

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The named rock units Nanhsiungchelyidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 25 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Nanhsiungchelyidae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Nanhsiungchelyidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

793 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 168 sites for Nanhsiungchelyidae, 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

80 references

Each of the 178 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. 68 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 Nanhsiungchelyidae

Credit
Willem van Valkenburg
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itCryptodira through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Yeh 1966