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Sea turtles can be found in all oceans except for the polar regions. The flatback sea turtle is found solely on the northern coast of Australia. The Kemp's ridley sea turtle is found solely in the Gulf of Mexico and along the East Coast of the United States. [30] Sea turtles are generally found in the waters over continental shelves.
Dermochelyidae is a family of sea turtles which has seven extinct genera and one extant genus, containing one living species, the leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). The oldest fossils of the group date to the Late Cretaceous .
Turtles are widely distributed across the world's continents, oceans, and islands with terrestrial, fully aquatic, and semi-aquatic species. Sea turtles are mainly tropical and subtropical, but leatherbacks can be found in colder areas of the Atlantic and Pacific. [136]
Hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) Sea turtles: there are seven extant species of sea turtles, which live mostly along the tropical and subtropical coastlines, though some do migrate long distances and have been known to travel as far north as Scandinavia. Sea turtles are largely solitary animals, though some do form large, though ...
Americhelydia is a clade of turtles that consists of sea turtles, snapping turtles, the Central American river turtle and mud turtles, supported by several lines of molecular work. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] Prior to these studies some morphological and developmental work have considered sea turtles to be basal members of Cryptodira and kinosternids ...
Desmatochelys was a large sea turtle, with some specimens reaching up to 2 meters long. [4] Members of the genus are characterized by the extended skull roof, large nasal bones, and a paddle-like humerus, as well as a distinct body shell or carapace and reduced plastron like other protostegids. [19]
A 2018 paper found it to be on the stem of Cheloniidae, the family to which most modern sea turtles belong, forming a monophyletic grouping with Ctenochelys and Peritresius. [2] In 2019, Gentry et al. assigned Prionochelys to the extinct Ctenochelyidae family. A cladogram from their analysis: [3]
Modern turtles have a horny beak without teeth in their mouth. In contrast, Odontochelys fossils were found to have had teeth embedded in their upper and lower jaws. [4] One of the most striking features of turtles, both modern and prehistoric alike, are their dorsal shells, forming an armored carapace over the body of the animal.