Iserosaurus
Extinct genus of turtles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Iserosaurus is an extinct genus of sea turtle from the Late Cretaceous of Czech Republic.
| Iserosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Testudines |
| Suborder: | Cryptodira |
| Family: | †Protostegidae |
| Genus: | †Iserosaurus |
| Type species | |
| †Iserosaurus littoralis Fritsch, 1905 | |
Taxonomy
Iserosaurus was originally described as a new taxon of mosasauroid by Fritsch (1905) on the basis of a disarticulated skeleton from Turonian-age chalk deposits in Bohemia, Czech Republic.[1][2] However, Persson (1963) tentatively listed it as a dubious plesiosaur in his overview of plesiosaur classification.[3] Karl (2002) recognized Iserosaurus as being a protostegid turtle and assigned it to cf. Archelon.[4] Kear et al. (2013) agreed with Karl (2002) that Iserosaurus is a marine turtle but noted differences from Archelon, so assigned the genus to Protostegidae indet.[5]
