''Pacifichelys'' is an extinct genus of
sea turtle
Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerh ...
from the
Middle Miocene
The Middle Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), epoch made up of two Stage (stratigraphy), stages: the Langhian and Serravallian stages. The Middle Miocene is preceded by the Early Miocene.
The sub-epoch lasted from 15.97 ± 0. ...
of
Peru
Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
(
Pisco Formation
The Pisco Formation is a geologic formation located in Peru, on the southern coastal desert of Ica, Peru, Ica and Arequipa. The approximately thick formation was deposited in the Pisco Basin, spanning an age from the Miocene, Late Miocene up to t ...
) and
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
(
Temblor Formation).
[''Pacifichelys'']
at Fossilworks
Fossilworks was a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world.
History
Fossilworks was cr ...
.org It was first named by
James F. Parham and
Nicholas D. Pyenson in 2010, and the
type species
In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...
is ''Pacifichelys urbinai'' from Peru.
A second species, ''P. hutchisoni'', was reassigned from the genus ''
Euclastes''. It is known from the Miocene of California. Like the living
Ridley and
loggerhead sea turtles, ''Pacifichelys'' was
durophagous
Durophagy is the eating behavior of animals that consume hard-shelled or exoskeleton-bearing organisms, such as corals, shelled mollusks, or crabs. It is mostly used to describe fish, but is also used when describing reptiles, including fossil t ...
, consuming hard-shelled organisms with crushing jaws.
Taxonomy
Cladogram
A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...
based on Lynch and Parham (2003)
and Parham and Pyenson (2010):
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q7122818
Chelonioidea
Prehistoric turtle genera
Miocene turtles
Miocene reptiles of North America
Neogene California
Miocene reptiles of South America
Laventan
Colloncuran
Friasian
Neogene Peru
Fossils of Peru
Fossil taxa described in 2010
Extinct turtles
Turtle genera