A new species of Nanhsiungchelys (Testudines: Cryptodira: Nanhsiungchelyidae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Nanxiong Basin, China
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Authors
Ke, YuzhengRahman, Imran
Song, Hanchen
Hu, Jinfeng
Niu, Kecheng
Lou, Fasheng
Li, Hongwei
Han, Fenglu
Issue date
2023-05-30Submitted date
2023-02-10Subject Terms
NanhsiungchelysUpper Cretaceous
Nanxiong Basin
phylogenetic analysis
Anterolateral processes
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Show full item recordAbstract
Nanhsiungchelyidae are a group of large turtles that lived in Asia and North America during the Cretaceous. Here we report a new species of nanhsiungchelyid, Nanhsiungchelys yangi sp. nov., from the Upper Cretaceous of Nanxiong Basin, China. The specimen consists of a well-preserved skull and lower jaw, as well as the anterior parts of the carapace and plastron. The diagnostic features of Nanhsiungchelys include a large entire carapace length (∼55.5 cm), a network of sculptures consisting of pits and ridges on the surface of the skull and shell, shallow cheek emargination and temporal emargination, deep nuchal emargination, and a pair of anterolateral processes on the carapace. However, Nanhsiungchelys yangi differs from the other species of Nanhsiungchelys mainly in having a triangular-shaped snout (in dorsal view) and wide anterolateral processes on the carapace. Additionally, some other characteristics (e.g., the premaxilla is higher than wide, the maxilla is unseen in dorsal views, a small portion of the maxilla extends posterior and ventral of the orbit, and the parietal is bigger than the frontal) are strong evidence to distinguish Nanhsiungchelys yangi from Nanhsiungchelys wuchingensis. A phylogenetic analysis of nanhsiungchelyids places Nanhsiungchelys yangi and Nanhsiungchelys wuchingensis as sister taxa. Nanhsiungchelys yangi and some other nanhsiungchelyids bear distinct anterolateral processes on the carapace, which have not been reported in any extant turtles and may have played a role in protecting the head. The Nanxiong Basin was extremely hot during the Late Cretaceous, and so we suggest that nanhsiungchelyids might have immersed themselves in mud or water to avoid the heat, similar to some extant tortoises. If they were capable of swimming, our computer simulations of fluid flow suggest the anterolateral processes could have reduced drag during locomotion.Citation
Ke Y, Rahman IA, Song H, Hu J, Niu K, Lou F, Li H, Han F. 2023. A new species of Nanhsiungchelys (Testudines: Cryptodira: Nanhsiungchelyidae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Nanxiong Basin, China. PeerJ 11:e15439 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15439Publisher
PeerJJournal
PeerJType
Journal ArticleItem Description
Copyright© 2023 Ke et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.NHM Repository
EISSN
2167-8359ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.7717/peerj.15439
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