Chelyoposuchus

Say it: KEL-ee-oh-poh-SOO-kus

Name means: “turtle crocodile”1

Ate: MeatOther sea reptilesLate TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Chelyoposuchus was a marine reptile that lived in the Late Triassic period, about 205 to 201 million years ago. It had a shell like a turtle and swam in ancient seas, but it was not a dinosaur.1 3

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

206 to 201 million years ago3

Late Triassic

Fossils found in

Baerecke-Limpricht clay pit, Halberstadt, Germany1 3

Food

Meat2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Chelyoposuchus is a type of placodont, a group of marine reptiles that often had turtle-like shells.1

Its name means 'turtle crocodile' because it looked a bit like both a turtle and a crocodile.1

The only known species is Chelyoposuchus crassisquamatus, which was named in 1939 by scientist O. Kuhn.1 3

Fossils of Chelyoposuchus were found in the Trossingen Formation in Germany, which is made of rocks from the Late Triassic.1

The first fossils were collected by Otto Jaekel between 1909 and 1913, but the animal was not named until 1939.1

Chelyoposuchus lived in a marine environment, meaning it swam in the ocean.2

AI-made picture of Chelyoposuchus — An AI-made picture of how Chelyoposuchus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Chelyoposuchus
Named by: Kuhn 19393
Group: Other sea reptiles
Family / clade: Henodontidae3
Classification: Placodontia > Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 206 to 201 million years (Rhaetian)3
Rock formations: Trossingen3
Countries: Germany3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Chelyoposuchus was named by O. Kuhn in 1939 based on fossils collected by Otto Jaekel between 1909 and 1913 in Halberstadt, Germany.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure what Chelyoposuchus ate, because its diet is unknown from fossils.2

Where the facts come from

Chelyoposuchus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Chelyoposuchus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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