Leyvachelys

Leyvachelys; Temporal range: Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Pantestudines
Clade:	Testudinata
Clade:	†Thalassochelydia
Family:	†Sandownidae
Genus:	†Leyvachelys; Cadena, 2015
Species:	†L. cipadi
Binomial name
	†Leyvachelys cipadi; Cadena, 2015
	Paleogeography of Northern South America; 120 Ma, by Ron Blakey
Synonyms
	Glenrosechelys brooksi;

Leyvachelys is an extinct

fossiliferous Paja Formation, close to Villa de Leyva, Boyacá

, after which the genus is named. The holotype specimen is the oldest and most complete sandownid turtle found to date.

Fossils of a turtle found in the

dinosaur-rich Glen Rose Formation of Texas

, informally named Glenrosechelys brooksi, have been assigned to the same genus and type species.

Etymology

The genus name is derived from Villa de Leyva and chelys means "turtle" in Greek. The species epithet cipadi refers to the CIP; the Centro de Investigaciones Paleontológicas, the paleontological research centre outside Villa de Leyva.^[1]

Description

The

ammonites to be Late Barremian to Early Aptian in age.^[1]

The turtle is the earliest recorded sandownid turtle in the world and the first of this family discovered in South America. The fossil find consists of a fairly complete skull, a well-preserved lower jaw and postcrania with an almost complete carapace, three cervical vertebrae, right humerus and coracoid, both femora, tibiae, and pelvic girdle. The length of the skull is estimated at 15.6 centimetres (6.1 in) and the maximum size of the carapace has been reported as 88 by 108 centimetres (35 by 43 in). The carapace of L. cipadi is the first complete ever found for a sandownid.^[1]

Habitat

Plesiosaur and ammonites in the Centro de Investigaciones Paleontológicas (CIP), Villa de Leyva

The

shallow marine environments, and that their general body-plan was not designed for leading an open marine lifestyle. They nevertheless potentially shared niches with open marine turtles, as evidenced by the occurrence of protostegids as Desmatochelys, from the same stratigraphical horizons. The abundant occurrence of molluscs, principally ammonites, some of them preserved associated with the carapace of L. cipadi, suppose a potential source of food for its durophagous diet adaptation which could have also included arthropods, as for example crabs.^[1]

Fossil turtle fragments, initially and informally described as Glenrosechelys brooksi, found in the contemporaneous to slightly younger Glen Rose Formation of Texas have been assigned to the same genus Leyvachelys. Both occurrences in Texas (paleocoordinates 30.0° N, 55.5° W),^[5] and Colombia (paleocoordinates 3.6° N, 42.2° W)^[6] represent the northern and southern paleocoastline of the Early Cretaceous proto-Caribbean Sea.^[1]