Back
pdf
Journal article

The first soft-shelled turtle from the Jehol Biota of China

  • Lia, Lu University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing China
  • Joyce, Walter G. Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
  • Liu, Jun Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
    04.03.2015
Published in:
  • Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. - 2015, vol. 35, no. 2, p. e909450
English A new turtle from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian) Jiufotang Formation of western Liaoning, China, Perochelys lamadongensis, gen. et sp. nov., represents the first species of soft-shelled turtle from the Jehol Biota. The new taxon is diagnosed by the combination of the following characters: nuchal bone about five times wider than long; preneural absent; reversal of the orientation in the neural series at neural V; neural series fully separates costal series; costal VIIIs reduced; plastral callosities poorly developed and poorly sculpted; postorbital bar narrow, around one-fourth of orbit diameter; jugal contacting squamosal; foramen jugulare posterius separated from fenestra postotica; neural spines weakly developed on anterior cervicals; and phalangeal formula for pes 2-3-3-4-?. High levels of homoplasy make the phylogenetic relationships of the new taxon difficult to assess, and the possibility therefore exists that Perochelys lamadongensis either represents a stem or a crown trionychid. This phylogenetic uncertainty confirms that the skeletal morphology of trionychids has remained virtually unchanged for the last 120 million years.
Faculty
Faculté des sciences et de médecine
Department
Département de Géosciences
Language
  • English
Classification
Palaeontology
License
License undefined
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/304335
Statistics
Document views: 32 File downloads:
  • joy_fsh.pdf: 164