Dino card No. 1436 of 2,027

Placochelys

Say it: PLAK-oh-KEE-lis

Name means: “plate turtle”1

Ate: MeatSea reptilesLate Triassic to Late CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Placochelys was a marine reptile that looked a lot like a sea turtle, but it wasn't a turtle. It swam in warm seas during the Triassic Period, using its paddle-like limbs to glide through the water.1

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

Lived

237 to 72 million years ago4

Late Triassic to Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy1

Food

Meat1

Length

0.9 m1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 2 house cats nose to tailas long as 5 bananas end to end

How big was Placochelys compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Placochelys had a flat, turtle-like shell made of knobbly plates, but it was not a turtle. It was a type of reptile called a placodont.1

Its skull was compact and triangular, with a beak and powerful jaw muscles for crushing food.1

Unlike modern sea turtles, Placochelys still had visible toes on its paddle-shaped limbs, and it had a short tail.1

Placochelys lived about 221 to 205 million years ago, during the Late Triassic Period.1

It had only two pairs of teeth on the roof of its mouth: a large pair at the back and a small pair near the front.1

AI-made picture of Placochelys — An AI-made picture of how Placochelys 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.

you asked

Most asked questions about Placochelys

?How big was Placochelys?

About 90 centimetres (3 feet) long.1 3

?What did Placochelys eat?

Shellfish and other hard-shelled prey. It used its broad, crushing teeth on the roof of its mouth to break them open.1 3

?Could Placochelys walk on land?

It may have occasionally ventured onto land, because its paddle-shaped limbs still had visible toes, unlike modern sea turtles.3

?When did Placochelys go extinct?

It lived during the Late Triassic Period, from about 221 to 205 million years ago, and died out by the end of the Triassic.1

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Myth buster

Myth: Placochelys was a sea turtle.

Truth: Placochelys looked like a sea turtle, but it was a different kind of marine reptile called a placodont. It was not closely related to modern turtles.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Placochelys
Named by: Jaekel 19024
Group: Sea reptiles
Family / clade: Placochelyida4
Classification: Placodontia > Sauropterygia4
Age of the rocks: 237 to 72 million years (Carnian / Campanian)4
Rock formations: Gorno, Hauptdolomit, Veszprém Marl4
Countries: Italy, Austria, Hungary4
Fossil records: 5 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Placochelys was named by German paleontologist Otto Jaekel in 1902. The first fossils were found in Hungary.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating how Placochelys is related to other placodonts. Some think it might be the same as another genus called Psephoderma.2

Where the facts come from

Placochelys (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Placochelys (prehistoric-wildlife.com)
Placochelys in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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