We report on two clustering chelonibiid shells from Rupelian deposits of southwestern Germany. One of these specimens displays a tripartite rostral complex and disparietal radii that indicate the Oligocene species Protochelonibia melleni, which was known so far from isolated compartments only. A literature review reveals two additional, overlooked records of the rarely reported genus Protochelonibia, coming respectively from the Burdigalian of France and the Langhian of Austria. Both these historical finds likely represent the Miocene species Protochelonibia submersa. All together, these occurrences support the notion that the protochelonibiines had acquired a broad distribution as early as in Rupelian times, when P. melleni occurred along the proto-Gulf of Mexico and in the Western Paratethys. Both P. melleni and P. submersa grew in form of peltate shells that evoke a superficial adhesion to 1 some kind of quickly moving hosts. The outer wall of the abraded German colony of P. melleni is comprised of pillar-like blocks of shelly material. In other coronuloids, similar yet more prominent septa abut outward to form T-shaped flanges and intervening longitudinal canals that facilitate the grasping of various kinds of penetrable substrates. Whether the diminutive external longitudinal parietal septa of P. melleni represent an early stage in the evolution of the coronuloid shell architecture or vestigial structures cannot be ascertained, but the former hypothesis seems to be more likely. New additions to the pre-Pliocene fossil record of Coronuloidea will hopefully clarify this and other crucial aspects of the origin and early evolution of the turtle and whale barnacles.