Neochelys
Neochelys is an extinct genus of freshwater side-necked turtle that inhabited Europe during the Eocene. It was a diverse genus known throughout western and southern Europe from the Ypresian to the Priabonian.

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- ErymnochelyinaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivore, carnivorePBDB, for Podocnemididae
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Podocnemididae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Podocnemididae
Time the record covers
At least 10 million years on record.
The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 37.71 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 33.9 Mya.
65 occurrences of Neochelys 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
65 occurrences- Eocene100%
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
19 formations
- Entrala Formation8
- Grès d'Assignan Formation · Carcassonne Group3
- Messel Formation3
- Corrales Formation3
- Lignites de Soissonais Formation3
- Saint-Papoul Formation2
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The named rock units Neochelys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 26 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Neochelys and its relatives
EoceneWhere Neochelys and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
399 taxa- Allaeochelys16 sites
- Iberosuchus13 sites
- Diplocynodon12 sites
- Trionyx10 sites
- Eusuchia8 sites
- Axestemys vittata7 sites
- Diacodexis varleti7 sites
- Asiatosuchus6 sites
- Dunnophis matronensis6 sites
- Eolacerta6 sites
- Protodichobune oweni6 sites
- Amphisbaenidae5 sites
- Anguini5 sites
- Aumelasia menieli5 sites
- Calamagras gallicus5 sites
- Geiseltaliellus longicaudus5 sites
- Heterohyus5 sites
- Matthodon menui5 sites
- Melanosaurini5 sites
- Palaeochelys5 sites
- Pelorochelon eocaenica5 sites
- Tinosaurus europeocaenus5 sites
- Trionychidae5 sites
- Trionyx silvestris5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 56 sites for Neochelys, 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
22 references- Neochelys sp. (Chelonii, Erymnochelyinae), from Silveirinha, early Eocene, Portugal23
- Crocodyliformes and Testudines from the Eocene of the Duero Basin (northwestern Spain): an update of their diversity and stratigraphic context8
- Shell anatomy and intraspecific variability of the Spanish Lutetian podocnemidid turtle Neochelys zamorensis4
- Contribution a l'etude des Cheloniens. Cheloniens continentaux due Cretace et du Tertiare de France4
- New insights into the anatomy and systematic of 'Papoulemys' laurenti, a representative of Neochelys (Chelonii, Podocnemididae) from the early Eocene of the south of France3
- Tipos depositados en la Sala de las Turtugas de la Universidad de Salamanca3
- Evaluation of the Validity of the Spanish Eocene Pleurodiran Turtle ‘Duerochelys arribasi’: The Youngest Freshwater Member of Erymnochelyinae (Podocnemididae) in Europe2
- Shell characterization of the youngest valid species of the European Eocene genus Neochelys (Pleurodira, Podocnemididae): The Spanish Bartonian Neochelys salmanticensis2
- A global phylogeny of Pelomedusoides turtles with new material of Neochelys franzeni Schleich, 1993 (Testudines, Podocnemididae) from the middle Eocene, Messel Pit, of Germany2
- Presence of several clades of continental turtles in the Lutetian (Middle Eocene) of the Sobrarbe Formation (Ainsa Basin, South-Central Pyrenees, Northeast Spain)2
- Un nouveau gisement à vertébrés éocènes, Rouzilhac (MP 10-11), dans la série molassique d’Issel (Aude, France)1
- A new species of Neochelys (Chelonii, Podocnemididae) from the Ypresian (Early Eocene) of the South of France1
Each of the 65 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. 10 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 Neochelys
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Ghedoghedo
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Neochelys 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, “Neochelys”
- 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 itErymnochelyinae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bergounioux 1954