Hydropelta is a genus of Late Jurassic turtle from marine deposits in the Jura Mountains of eastern France.
Hydropelta Temporal range:
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Clade: | Pantestudines |
Clade: | Testudinata |
Clade: | †Thalassochelydia |
Family: | †Eurysternidae |
Genus: | †Hydropelta von Meyer, 1860 |
Type species | |
Chelone meyeri Thiolliere, 1851
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Like many other eurysternid taxa, Hydropelta was at times considered the same species as Eurysternum. Originally described as a species of Chelone, it was renamed Hydropelta by Hermann von Meyer in 1860. Later, it was synonymized with Eurysternum by Oertel (1915), but was treated as a distinct genus and possibly a synonym of Solnhofia by Lapparent de Broin et al. (1996). However, Hydropelta is distinct from other eurysternids by the characters of the fontanelles and plastron.[1][2]