Archelon

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Archelon
Fossil range: Late Cretaceous

Artist's rendition

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Order:	Testudines
Suborder:	Cryptodira
Family:	Protostegidae
Genus:	Archelon

Binomial name

Archelon ischyros
Wieland, 1896

ARCHELON is also a sea-turtle conservation society, see ARCHELON, the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece

Archelon is a genus of extinct sea turtle, the largest that has ever been documented. The largest Archelon fossil, found in the Pierre Shale of South Dakota in the 1970s, measures more than 13.5 feet (4 meters) long, and about 16 feet wide from flipper to flipper. It was a seagoing turtle, related to present day Leatherback Sea Turtles.^[1] Its fossils date to 70 million years ago in the Cretaceous period, when a shallow sea covered most of central North America. Most of the known remains have been found in South Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska.^[2] Though anatomically similar to the earlier species Protostega gigas, it was much larger.^[3]

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[edit] Biology

Unlike most modern turtles, Archelon didn't have a solid shell, but instead had a skeletal framework supporting a leathery or bony carapace. Other distinguishing features include a pointed tail, a narrow skull, a relatively narrow, high-vaulted shell, and a pronounced overbite.^[4] They probably had a very strong bite, and were optimized for feeding on pelagic mollusks such as squid.^[5] Some specimens, such as the one owned by the National Natural History Museum in Vienna, apparently died while brumating on the ocean floor.^[6] This same specimen also suggests a century-long life span.^[7]