Archelon
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| phylum | Chordata | Archelon is a genus of extinct sea turtles, the largest that have ever been documented. The largest Archelon fossil, found in the Pierre Shale of South Dakota in the 1970s, measures more than 4 metres (13 ft) long, and about 4.9 metres (16 ft) wide from flipper to flipper. It was a marine turtle, whose closest living relative in the present day is the leatherback sea turtle. Archelon lived at a time when a shallow sea covered most of central North America. Though anatomically similar to the earlier species Protostega gigas, it was much larger.
For more information, visit the Wikipedia entry. Get back to Sea turtles |
| clade | Anapsida | |
| order | Testudines | |
| suborder | Cryptodira | |
| family | †Protostegidae | |
| genus | †Archelon | |
| Period | 80.5Ma |
