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

ARCHELON, the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece

ARCHELON, the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece was founded in 1983. It aims to protect sea turtles and their habitats in Greece through research, public awareness campaigns, restoring habitats, and through its rescue centre, built in 1994....

Archelon (from Greek αρχελών meaning ruler turtle) is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of extinct sea turtle

Sea turtle

Sea turtles are marine reptiles that inhabit all of the world's oceans except the Arctic.-Distribution:...

, the largest that has ever been documented.

Discovery

The first specimen of Archelon (YPM 3000) was collected from the Pierre Shale of South Dakota by Dr. G.R. Wieland in 1895 and described by him the following year (Wieland, 1896). The largest Archelon fossil, found in the Pierre Shale of South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

 in the 1970s, measures more than 4 metres (13.1 ft) long, and about 4.9 metres (16.1 ft) wide from flipper

Flipper (anatomy)

A flipper is a typically flat limb evolved for movement through water. Various creatures have evolved flippers, for example penguins , cetaceans A flipper is a typically flat limb evolved for movement through water. Various creatures have evolved flippers, for example penguins (also called...

 to flipper. It was a marine turtle, whose closest living relative in the present day is the leatherback sea turtle

Leatherback Sea Turtle

The leatherback sea turtle is the largest of all living sea turtles and the fourth largest modern reptile behind three crocodilians. It is the only living species in the genus Dermochelys. It can easily be differentiated from other modern sea turtles by its lack of a bony shell. Instead, its...

. Archelons fossils date to around 75-65 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous

Late Cretaceous

The Late Cretaceous is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous period is divided in the geologic timescale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous series...

 period, when a shallow sea covered most of central North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. Most of the known remains have been found in South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

 and Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

. Though anatomically similar to the earlier species Protostega gigas

Protostega

Protostega gigas is an extinct species of marine turtle. It was first collected from the Smoky Hill Chalk of western Kansas in 1871, and named by E.D. Cope...

, it was much larger.

Biology

Unlike most modern turtles, Archelon did not 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. The live weight of an Archelon ischyros is estimated at more than 2200 kg (4,850.2 lb). They probably had a very strong bite, and were optimized for feeding on pelagic mollusks such as squid

Squid

Squid are cephalopods of the order Teuthida, which comprises around 300 species. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, a mantle, and arms. Squid, like cuttlefish, have eight arms arranged in pairs and two, usually longer, tentacles...

. The specimen exhibited by the Museum of Natural History

Naturhistorisches Museum

The Naturhistorisches Museum Wien or NHMW is a large museum located in Vienna, Austria.The collections displayed cover , and the museum has a website providing an overview as a video virtual tour....

 in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 is estimated to have lived to be a century old, and may have died while brumating on the ocean floor. However, brumation in reptiles is a response to cold weather and it is unlikely that the Western Interior Sea was ever that cold.

Popular culture

An Archelon made an appearance in the Hammer Film Productions

Hammer Film Productions

Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...

 1966 remake of One Million Years B.C.

One Million Years B.C.

One Million Years B.C. is a 1966 British adventure/fantasy film starring Raquel Welch, set - loosely - in the time of cavemen. The film was made by Hammer Film Productions, and was a remake of the 1940 Hollywood film One Million B.C., and it recreates many of the scenes of that film...

. Archelon also appeared in the Walking with Dinosaurs

Walking with Dinosaurs

Walking with Dinosaurs is a six-part documentary television miniseries that was produced by BBC, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and first aired in the United Kingdom, in 1999. The series was subsequently aired in North America on the Discovery Channel in 2000, with Branagh's voice replaced with that...

 spinoff special Sea Monsters, and in Prehistoric. The film The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists

The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists

The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists is a 1996 direct-to-video film directed by Roy Allen Smith. This was supposed to be the last Land Before Time sequel directed by Smith, and the last sequel to feature any of the original voice cast...

 features a helpful, atypically cave-dwelling Archelon named "Archie" assisting the juvenile sauropod named Littlefoot in the story.

External links

• The Giant Archelon Ischyros