Santanachelys gaffneyi

Santanachelys gaffneyi is an extinct species of sea turtle. It is the only species in the genus Santanachelys, which itself is a member of the extinct family Protostegidae. The species was first described from a 20-centimeter long fossil specimen unearthed in 1998 from the Santana Formation of eastern Brazil. From the rock layer from which it was excavated, it was determined that the specimen was from the Early Cretaceous period. It is therefore one of the oldest known sea turtles. but a new fossil named Desmatochelys padillai in 2015 is estimated to be as old as 120 million years.

Santanachelys gaffneyi

Uncredited · 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
SantanachelysPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Cryptodira
Life habit
aquaticPBDB, for Cryptodira
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Chelonioidea

Time the record covers

At most 6.4 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 119.57 Mya and 113.2 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 1 occurrenceEarly Cretaceous120–119 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences119–118 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences118–118 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences118–118 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences118–118 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences118–117 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences117–117 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences117–117 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences117–117 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences117–116 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences116–116 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences116–116 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences116–116 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences116–115 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences115–114 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences114–114 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences114–114 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences114–114 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences114–113 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences113–113 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences120.1 Mya112.7 Mya

1 occurrence of Santanachelys gaffneyi on record, most of them in the Early 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

1 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

1 formation

Romualdo — 7.18°S, 39.73°W

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The named rock units Santanachelys gaffneyi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Santanachelys gaffneyi and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Santanachelys gaffneyi and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

16 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Santanachelys gaffneyi, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Santanachelys gaffneyi

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Santanachelys gaffneyi 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 itSantanachelys through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hirayama 1998