''Iserosaurus'' is an
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
of
sea turtle
Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, ...
from the Late
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...
of
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
.
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. However, Persson (1963) tentatively listed it as a dubious plesiosaur in his overview of plesiosaur classification. Karl (2002) recognized ''Iserosaurus'' as being a protostegid turtle and assigned it to cf. ''Archelon''. 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.
[Kear, B.P., Ekrt, B., Prokop, J. & Georgalis, G.L. (2014) Turonian marine amniotes from the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin, Czech Republic. Geological Magazine, 151, 183–198.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0016756813000502]
References
Protostegidae
Prehistoric turtle genera
Fossil taxa described in 1905
Extinct turtles
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