Archelon

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Archelon (Greek meaning ruler turtle) is a genus of extinct sea turtle, the largest that has ever been documented. The first specimen of Archelon (YPM 3000) was collected from the Pierre Shale of South Dakota by Dr. G.R. Wieland in 1895 and described by him the following year (Wieland, 1896). The largest Archelon fossil, found in the Pierre Shale of South Dakota in the 1970s, measures more than 4 metres (13 ft) long, and about 4.9 metres (16 ft) wide from flipper to flipper. It was a marine turtle, whose closest living relative in the present day is the leatherback sea turtle.