Iserosaurus Temporal range:
Late Cretaceous,
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Order: | Testudines |
Suborder: | Cryptodira |
Family: | † Protostegidae |
Genus: | † Iserosaurus |
Type species | |
†Iserosaurus littoralis Fritsch, 1905
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Iserosaurus is an extinct genus of sea turtle from the Late Cretaceous of Czech Republic.
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]