#drazinderetes

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Another sketch brought to you by #paleostream!

Drazinderetes, a giant marine soft shelled turtle from the Eocene of Pakistan. Here a basal sea cow is vibing on it's back. As it should.

[arminreindl]

Back to older art. These are giant softshell turtles found in the Eocene Drazinda Formation of Pakistan. On the left is Drazinderetes (Greek for Drazinda Rower), known from a bony carapace 0.8 meters long. On the right, an indetermined softshell turtle that may or may not belong to the same species, but is only known from a plastron element. This might correspond to a bony shell 1.2 meters long. As you can see there are some big difference between the lower estimate and the upper estimate, which has a lot of free space. This is because in different softshell turtles there's difference ratios between the bony and the soft shell parts. The lower estimate is based on Apalone softshell turtles, which have only 20% cartilage on the shell, while the upper is based on the Malayan softshell which has up to 45% cartilage in addition to the bone. First image Apalone ferox (Florida softshell) by Johnskate17 on Wikimedia Second image Dogania subplana (Malayan softshell) by Wibowo Djatmiko on Wikimedia

Drazinderetes lived during the Eocene in what is now Pakistan in the Drazinda Formation. This is interesting as this formation preserves a marine environment, meaning that in the absence of evidence that the fossils were washed out at sea, Drazinderetes might have been a marine animal. This would match its enormous size, as most giant turtle species have been marine (not counting those of Miocene South America). Although this would make it the first known fully marine softshell until evidence of the contrary is found, modern softshells are known to occasionally enter saltwater. Drazinderetes shared its environment with crocodiles similar to Asiatosuchus, early manatee relatives in the form of Protosiren and primitive whales related to Basilosaurus. The following reconstructions have both been made by @knuppitalism-with-ue during his paleoart streams.