Pacifichelys is an extinct sea turtle

Sea turtle

Sea turtles are marine reptiles that inhabit all of the world's oceans except the Arctic.-Distribution:...

 from the Miocene

Miocene

The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...

 of Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 and California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. It was first named by James F. Parham and Nicholas D. Pyenson in 2010, and the type species

Type species

In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...

 is Pacifichelys urbinai from Peru. A second species, P. hutchisoni, was reassigned from the genus Euclastes

Euclastes

Euclastes is an extinct genus of sea turtle. It was first named by Edward Drinker Cope in 1867, and contains three species. One species, E. hutchisoni, was named in 2003 but has since been reassigned to the genus Pacifichelys.-Description:...

. It is known from the Miocene of California. Like the living Ridley

Ridley sea turtle

Ridley sea turtles are a genus of sea turtles comprising two species: Kemp's ridley sea turtle and the olive ridley sea turtle.Kemp's ridley sea turtles are currently on the New York and federal endangered species lists.-Anatomy:...

 and Loggerhead sea turtle

Loggerhead sea turtle

The loggerhead sea turtle , or loggerhead, is an oceanic turtle distributed throughout the world. It is a marine reptile, belonging to the family Cheloniidae. The average loggerhead measures around long when fully grown, although larger specimens of up to have been discovered...

s, Pacifichelys was durophagous

Durophagy

Durophagy is the term for describing the eating behavior of animals that consume hard-shelled or exoskeleton bearing organisms, such as corals, shelled mollusks, or crabs....

, consuming hard-shelled organisms with crushing jaws.

Cladogram

Cladogram

A cladogram is a diagram used in cladistics which shows ancestral relations between organisms, to represent the evolutionary tree of life. Although traditionally such cladograms were generated largely on the basis of morphological characters, DNA and RNA sequencing data and computational...

 based on Lynch and Parham (2003) and Parham and Pyenson (2010):