Carolinochelys wilsoni

[Shellseeker]

I found a really interesting bone a week ago.  Tonight I found a Research paper.

Oligocene pancheloniid sea turtles from the vicinity of Charleston South Carolina U S A

A Map of where these Sea Turtles were found:

 

A photo picture of a right Humerous of  a turtle named Carolinochelys wilsoni. It is approximately 16 cm in length,

My find, basically a distal half of a Sea Turtle humerus is 8.2 cm.

 

I am feeling good tonight.  Sharing the joy.  Morning coming quick.  Going out hunting at 5:30 AM.  Goodnight,  Jack

[Fossildude19]

Nice find, Jack! 

[Shellseeker]

This is like a dream come true for any fossil hunter...  I was out hunting today, did not find anything rare...

My dream was finding a bone, claw, etc of Titanis Walleri..., not knowing what I had found and discovering the reality through my friends on the the Fossil Forum...I have hunted Blancan site and found some very rare fossils...Xenosmilus, Paramylodon garbanii but none are as rare as Titanis... or as rare as a broken humerus of Carolinochelys in Bone Valley.

 

Quote

The first described fossils of Titanis were collected in 1961 by Benjamin Waller in a site dating to the Blancan in the Santa Fe River on the county borderland between Gilchrist and Columbia Counties in Florida, the first Phorusrhacid fossils found in North America.^[10][12] The fossils were fragmentary and from several different individuals, including the distal end of a tarsometatarus (UF-4108) that was associated with a phalanx 1 of digit 3 from the foot.^[9][8] It lived approximately 5 to 2 million years ago (early Pliocene to early Pleistocene) in North America. Fossil evidence has been found in three locations in Florida and one in Texas.^[13] The Gilchrist County, Florida site dates from 3.0 to 2.9 million years ago.^[14] The Santa Fe River, where 27 of the 41 Titanis fossil specimen have been found, is located in Gilchrist County. The other locations that Titanis has been found include Port Charlotte and Inglis, Florida. Only one specimen has been found outside of Florida, and that was in the Nueces River in Texas.

 

Wikipedia...

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Carolinochelys Temporal range: Oligocene 33.9–23 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Carolinachelys wilsoni skull and shell at Mace Brown Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Testudines
Suborder:	Cryptodira
Superfamily:	Chelonioidea
Family:	Cheloniidae
Genus:	†Carolinochelys Hay, 1923
Species:	†C. wilsoni
Binomial name
†Carolinochelys wilsoni Hay, 1923

Carolinochelys is an extinct genus of sea turtle from Oligocene of United States. It contains one species: C. wilsoni, and was first named by O.P. Hay in 1923.

 

So,  how would my half humerus get to Bone Valley ? Is it really pre_Miocene, 28 million years old? I have to figure out how to validate my identification of this bone.... @Boesse

[Boesse]

Hey all,

 

Carolinachelys is only known from the Oligocene. Sea turtle humeri are pretty conserved and difficult to identify. Syllomus aegyptiacus (see below) looks nearly identical and is known from the Miocene (e.g. Calvert Fm, Pungo River Ls), and is a more likely ID. From Weems 1974: Middle Miocene sea turtles (Syllomus, Procolpochelys, Psephophorus) from the Calvert Formation. Journal of Paleontology.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Boesse

[Shellseeker]

12 minutes ago, Boesse said:

Hey all,

 

Carolinachelys is only known from the Oligocene. Sea turtle humeri are pretty conserved and difficult to identify. Syllomus aegyptiacus (see below) looks nearly identical and is known from the Miocene (e.g. Calvert Fm, Pungo River Ls), and is a more likely ID. From Weems 1974: Middle Miocene sea turtles (Syllomus, Procolpochelys, Psephophorus) from the Calvert Formation. Journal of Paleontology.

Thank you.  I will pursue that path...  makes more sense. I did not realize that turtle humeri could be so similar between families.  But one way or another ,  this bone was deposited when Bone Valley was under up to 200 feet of water... somewhere in the vicinity of 12 mya. 

 

28 mya (Oligocene), could the same thing not have happened ?  Just curiosity,  Bobby

[Boesse]

Sure? But, unlikely: there's only one fossiliferous marine unit in Florida that dates to the Oligocene - the Parachucla Formation, which straddles the Oligo-Miocene boundary, and is not near Bone Valley; it's right up at the FL-GA boundary if I remember right. If that's what you're asking.

[Shellseeker]

6 hours ago, Boesse said:

Sure? But, unlikely: there's only one fossiliferous marine unit in Florida that dates to the Oligocene - the Parachucla Formation, which straddles the Oligo-Miocene boundary, and is not near Bone Valley; it's right up at the FL-GA boundary if I remember right. If that's what you're asking.

Seems obvious when you say it... The Formation where I found the humerus is Miocene. Why would i reach for a fauna that could never exist in the Miocene.. and yes,  that was the question...