The Chelydridae have a long
fossil history, with
extinct species reported from North America as well as all over Asia and Europe, far outside their present range. The earliest described chelydrid is Emarginachelys cretacea, known from well-preserved fossils from the
Maastrichtian stage of the Late
Cretaceous of
Montana.[1] Another well-preserved fossil chelydrid is the Late
PaleoceneProtochelydra zangerli from
North Dakota.[6] The
carapace of P. zangerli is higher-domed than that of the recent Chelydra, a trait conjectured to be associated with the coexistence of large, turtle-eating
crocodilians. Another genus, Chelydropsis, contains several well-known
Eurasian chelydrid
species that existed from the
Oligocene to the
Pliocene.[7] In South America, chelydrids (C. acutirostris) only occupy the northwestern corner of the continent, reflecting their recent arrival from Central America as part of the
Great American Interchange.
^
abGray, John Edward. (1831). Synopsis Reptilium; or Short Descriptions of the Species of Reptiles. Part I.—Cataphracta. Tortoises, Crocodiles, and Enaliosaurians. London: Treuttel, Wurz, and Co., 85 pp. [Published May 1831].
^Turtle Taxonomy Working Group [van Dijk, P.P., Iverson, J.B., Shaffer, H.B., Bour, R., and Rhodin, A.G.J.]. (2012). Turtles of the World, 2012 update: annotated checklist of taxonomy, synonymy, distribution, and conservation status. Chelonian Research Monographs No. 5, pp. 000.243–000.328, doi:10.3854/crm.5.000.checklist.v5.2012,
"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from
the original(PDF) on 2013-06-16. Retrieved 2014-04-19.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
link)
^Swainson, William. (1839). On the natural history and classification of fishes, amphibians, and reptiles. Vol. II. In: Lardner, D. (Ed.). The Cabinet Cyclopaedia. Natural History. London: Longman, 452 pp.
^Gray, John Edward. (1869). Notes on the families and genera of tortoises (Testudinata), and on the characters afforded by the study of their skulls. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1869:165–225.
^Danilov G. and J. F. Parham. (2008). A reassessment of some poorly known turtles from the Middle Jurassic of China, with comments on the antiquity of extant turtles. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28(2):306-318
^Böhme, M. (2008). Ectothermic vertebrates (Teleostei, Allocaudata, Urodela, Anura, Testudines, Choristodera, Crocodylia, Squamata) from the Upper Oligocene of Oberleichtersbach (Northern Bavaria, Germany). Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 260:161-183
Further reading
de Broin, F. (1969). Contribution a l'etude des cheloniens. Cheloniens continentaux du Cretace Superieur et du Tertiaire de France. Memoires du
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Vol. C, No. XXVIII.
Ericson, B.R. (1973). A new chelydrid turtle (Protochelydra zangerli), from the late Paleocene of North Dakota. Scientific Publications of the Science Museum of Minnesota, New Series. 2(2):1-16.
Gaffney, E.S. (1975).
Phylogeny of the chelydrid turtles: a study of shared derived characters in the skull. Fieldiana Geology 33:157-178.
Parham, J.F., C.R. Feldman, and J.R. Boore (2006). The complete
mitochondrial genome of the enigmatic bigheaded turtle (Platysternon): description of unusual genomic features and the reconciliation of phylogenetic hypotheses based on mitochondrial and
nuclear DNA. BMC Evol Biol. 6: 11. Published online February 7, 2006.
doi:
10.1186/1471-2148-6-11.
Whetstone, K.N. (1978). A new genus of cryptodiran turtles (Testudinoidea, Chelydridae) from the Upper Cretaceous
Hell Creek Formation of Montana. The
University of Kansas Science Bulletin 51(17):539-563.