Pseudemys

Pseudemys is a genus of large, herbivorous, freshwater turtles of the eastern United States and adjacent northeast Mexico. They are often referred to as cooters, which stems from kuta, the word for turtle in the Bambara and Malinké languages, brought to America by enslaved people from Africa.

Pseudemys

NASA · 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
Also called
cooterPBDB
Sits inside
EmydidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Emydidae
Life habit
aquaticPBDB, for Emydidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Emydidae

Time the record covers

At least 16 million years on record.

The record covers at least 16.3 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 18.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 15 of 44 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 4 of 44 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 24 of 44 occurrencesPleistocene19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences10–9.5 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences9.5–8.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence8.9–8.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence8.2–7.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence7.6–7.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence7.0–6.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence6.3–5.7 Mya — about 1 occurrence5.7–5.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence5.1–4.4 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences4.4–3.8 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences3.8–3.2 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences3.2–2.5 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.5–1.9 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.9–1.3 Mya — about 3 occurrences1.3–633 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences633 ka–0 Mya — about 16 occurrences16.3 Mya11.7 ka19 Mya0 Mya

44 occurrences of Pseudemys on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

44 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

11 formations

Alachua — 29.10°N, 82.30°WAlachua — 29.70°N, 82.60°WAlachua — 29.55°N, 82.52°WAlachua — 29.40°N, 82.60°WAlachua — 29.65°N, 82.60°WTamiami — 27.37°N, 82.45°WTamiami — 27.78°N, 82.68°WStatenville — 30.40°N, 83.00°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WFort Thompson — 27.80°N, 82.80°WTorreya — 30.30°N, 84.20°WMcPherson — 38.30°N, 97.60°WBacons Castle — 38.16°N, 76.83°WGlenns Ferry — 42.82°N, 114.94°WSt Marys — 38.16°N, 76.45°WSan Gerardo — 8.83°N, 83.00°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Pseudemys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 25 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pseudemys and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Pseudemys and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

873 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 37 sites for Pseudemys, 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

35 references

Each of the 44 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. 23 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 Pseudemys

Credit
NASA
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pseudemys 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 itEmydidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1856