Photo: National Park Service, Fossil Butte National Monument
- Order
- Testudines
- Family
- Baenidae
A bottom-walking aquatic turtle with a long tail and a head that could not retract into the shell.
The extinct Baenidae family is known only from western North America. It dates back to the early Cretaceous (about 120 million years ago) and went extinct sometime in the late Eocene (about 35 million years ago).
They were aquatic turtles sometimes called "bottom-walking," as they were possibly not good swimmers. They fed mostly on fish and crustaceans, and are characterized by long tails and the inability to retract heads into shells.
Species text: National Park Service, Fossil Butte National Monument — Fossil Reptile Species.